n; you must
not fall down before me." "Why did you wear that monkey-skin?" asked
his father. "Because," he said, "my mother ate the mango stone instead
of eating the mango, and so I was born with this skin, and God ordered
me to wear it till I had found a wife." His brothers said, "Who could
have guessed there was such a beautiful man inside that monkey-skin?
God's decrees are good!" And they left off hating their brother,
Prince Monkey.

There were great rejoicings and feasts now, and all were very happy.
The six elder brothers lived always with their father and Prince
Monkey, but none of them ever married.

Told by Dunkni.

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

XI.

BRAVE HIRALALBASA.

Once there was a Raja called Manikbasa Raja, or the Ruby King, who had
seven wives and seven children. One day he told his wives he would go
out hunting, and he rode on and on, a long, long way from his palace.
A Rakshas was sitting by the wayside, who, seeing the Raja coming,
quickly turned herself into a beautiful Rani, and sat there crying.
The Raja asked her, "Why do you cry?" And the Rakshas answered, "My
husband has gone away. He has been away many days, and I think he will
never come back again. If some Raja will take me to his house and
marry me, I shall be very glad." So the Raja said, "Will you come with
me?" And the Rakshas answered, "Very well, I will come." And then the
Raja took the pretended Rani home with him and married her. He gave
her a room to live in. Every night at twelve o'clock the Rakshas got
up and devoured an elephant, or a horse, or some other animal. The
Raja said, "What can become of my elephants and horses? Every day
either an elephant or a horse disappears. Who can take them away?" The
Rakshas-Rani said to him, "Your seven Ranis are Rakshases, and every
night at twelve o'clock they devour a horse, or an elephant, or some
other creature."

So the Raja believed her, and had a great hole dug just outside his
kingdom, into which he put the seven Ranis with their children, and
then he sent a sepoy to them and bade him take out all the Ranis'
eyes, and bring them to him. This the sepoy did. After a time the
poor Ranis grew so hungry that six of them ate their children, but the
seventh Rani, who was the youngest of them all, declared she would
never eat her child though she might die of hunger, "for," she said,
"I love him a great deal too much." God was very pleased with the
seventh Rani for this