'Is that all?' quoth the cricket; 'had I known how small a job you
wanted me to do, I would not have assembled so many of my brethren.'
With that the flight of crickets set to work, and in one night they
separated the seed from the sand.
Now when the sixty-nine fair maidens, daughters of the King, saw that
Rasâlu had performed his task, they set him another, bidding him swing
them all, one by one, in their swings, until they were tired.
Whereupon he laughed, saying, 'There are seventy of you, counting my
little bride yonder, and I am not going to spend my life in swinging
girls; yet, by the time I have given each of you a swing, the first
will be wanting another! No! if you want to swing, get in, all
seventy of you, into one swing, and then I will see what I can
compass.'
So the seventy maidens, merry and careless, full of smiles and
laughter, climbed into the one swing, and Raja Rasâlu, standing in his
shining armour, fastened the ropes to his mighty bow, and drew it up
to its fullest bent. Then he let go, and like an arrow the swing shot
into the air, with its burden of seventy fair maidens, merry and
careless, full of smiles and laughter.
But as it swung back again, Rasâlu, standing there in his shining
armour, drew his sharp sword and severed the ropes. Then the seventy
fair maidens fell to the ground headlong; and some were bruised and
some broken, but the only one who escaped unhurt was the maiden who
loved Rasâlu, for she fell out last, on the top of the others, and so
came to no harm.
After this, Rasâlu strode on fifteen paces, till he came to the
seventy drums, that every one who came to play _chaupur_ with the
King had to beat in turn; and he beat them so loudly that he broke
them all. Then he came to the seventy gongs, all in a row, and he
hammered them so hard that they cracked to pieces.
Seeing this, the youngest Princess, who was the only one who could
run, fled to her father the King in a great fright, saying--
'A mighty Prince, Sarkap! making havoc, rides along,
He swung us, seventy maidens fair, and threw us out headlong;
He broke the drums you placed there and the gongs too in his pride,
Sure, he will kill thee, father mine, and take me for his bride!'