he Rajah, their father, never troubled
himself to look after them, but allowed his wife to treat them as she
liked. This made the poor girls very miserable, and one day one of
them said to the other, "Don't let us remain any longer here; come
away into the jungle, for nobody here cares whether we go or stay." So
they both walked off into the jungle, and lived for many days on the
jungle fruits. At last, after they had wandered on for a long while,
they came to a fine palace which belonged to a Rakshas, but both the
Rakshas and his wife were out when they got there. Then one of the
Princesses said to the other, "This fine palace, in the midst of the
jungle, can belong to no one but a Rakshas, but the owner has
evidently gone out; let us go in and see if we can find anything to
eat." So they went into the Rakshas's house, and finding some rice,
boiled, and ate it. Then they swept the room and arranged all the
furniture in the house tidily. But hardly had they finished doing so
when the Rakshas and his wife returned home. Then the two Princesses
were so frightened that they ran up to the top of the house and hid
themselves on the flat roof, from whence they could look down on one
side into the inner courtyard of the house, and from the other could
see the open country. The house-top was a favourite resort of the
Rakshas and his wife. Here they would sit upon the hot summer
evenings; here they winnowed the grain and hung out the clothes to
dry; and the two Princesses found a sufficient shelter behind some
sheaves of corn that were waiting to be threshed. When the Rakshas
came into the house, he looked round and said to his wife, "Somebody
has been arranging the house; everything in it is so clean and tidy.
Wife, did you do this?" "No," she said; "I don't know who can have
done all this." "Someone also has been sweeping the courtyard,"
continued the Rakshas. "Wife, did you sweep the courtyard?" "No," she
answered; "I did not do it. I don't know who did." Then the Rakshas
walked round and round several times with his nose up in the air,
saying, "Someone is here now. I smell flesh and blood! Where can they
be?" "Stuff and nonsense!" cried his wife; "you smell blood indeed!
Why, you have just been killing and eating a hundred thousand people.
I should wonder if you didn't still smell flesh and blood!" They went
on quarrelling thus until the Rakshas said, "Well, never mind; I don't
know how it is, but I'm very thirsty; let's come