Part 2 (2/2)

”Fate has not been kind yet, so it must be the last part,” sobbed Dehra.

”I think that is very ungrateful of you,” said the jackal. ”Here you have been living comfortably in a beautiful palace for some time. I am not sure that it is nice of you to complain that you have had no luck at all.”

Dehra began to cry.

”But that is not what I came to tell you,” the jackal added. ”The Rakshas is on his way home and you will have to go away.”

He was a very wise jackal, so he went on. ”It is sure to come out all right, and I will help you to find your sister.”

So they went, right away, into the jungle, and pretty soon the jackal's sharp eyes saw the first ruby, wrapped in its yellow silk, lying on the gra.s.s. And soon after that they found another, and then another, and by and by they came out of the jungle.

”I shall have to leave you here,” said the jackal. ”There are towns out here in the open country, and where there are towns there are men, and men do not like jackals.”

”But what shall I do?” asked Dehra.

”I will help you to make yourself look like an old woman,” replied the jackal. ”You will have to do something of the kind or some one will carry you off and you will never find your sister.”

Then the jackal showed Dehra a plant which she rubbed on her face and made it an ugly brown, and then he showed her how to make her face look wrinkled. Then he went to a little house not far away and stole a coa.r.s.e red saree which an old woman had hung on a bush to dry after was.h.i.+ng it.

”Where did you get this?” asked Dehra, as the jackal brought it to her in his mouth; and the jackal told her it was growing on a bush. So Dehra put it on and went slowly along the road like an old woman.

Every little while she found one of Nala's rubies, and then they would be a long way apart, but at last she came to the city where Nala was, and found the last ruby by the gate of the Rajah's palace. Then she sat down not very far away and wondered how she could get inside the palace.

As night came on, the wife of a laboring man took pity on the poor old woman, as she supposed Dehra to be, and let her sleep in a hut in her garden. Now this garden was very near the palace grounds, in which was a marble bathing-tank covered with red lotus flowers.

When Dehra saw this beautiful place, she said to herself, ”I will bathe there every morning. I will go very early, so as not to be seen.”

So Dehra left her hut very early and bathed in the beautiful tank, and all the brown stain and all the wrinkles came off her face. She washed the old saree and hung it on a tree, and then put on her own blue silk saree and her necklace of pearls. Then she sat on the steps of the tank and twined some of the red lotus flowers in her hair.

”It makes me feel like myself again,” she thought, as she looked down at her reflection in the water. But the royal lotus flowers made her think of Nala, and she longed more than ever to see her.

After Dehra had bathed in the palace gardens for several mornings, his servants told the Rajah that some of his beautiful lotus flowers disappeared each day before sunrise. This made the Rajah very angry and he said he would offer a reward for the capture of this thief.

Then the Rajah's second son, who was a very handsome young prince, said to his father, ”You need not do that. I will capture the thief without any reward.”

”He will do it easily,” said the Ranee, who was very proud of her son.

So that night the Prince walked about the palace garden for a long time, but at last he was so sleepy that he lay down near the bathing-place and did not awake until the sun was just rising.

Leaning against the steps of the marble tank was a lovely girl dressed in blue silk with a chain of pearls around her neck and red lotus flowers in her hair.

The Prince jumped up quickly, exclaiming, ”You cannot be the thief!”

”I did not mean to be a thief,” faltered Dehra.

”They are my father's flowers and you can have more of them if you wish,” said the Prince without taking his eyes off her lovely face.

<script>