ildren jumped out. They rushed into their father's arms,
and he clasped them tight, and they cried softly, that the Rani might
not hear.

He shut his room up close, and fed and dressed his children, and then
went out of the room, locking the door behind him. He had a little
wooden house built that could easily catch fire, and as soon as it was
ready he went to the Rani and said, "Will you go into a little house I
have made ready for you while your room is getting repaired?" "All
right," said the Rani; so she went into the little house, and that
night a man set it on fire, and the Rani and everything in it was
burnt up. Then the Pomegranate Raja took her bones, put them into a
tin box, and sent them as a present to her mother. "Oh," said the
mother, "my daughter has married the Pomegranate Maharaja, and so she
sends me some delicious food." When she opened the box, to her horror
she found only bones! Then she wrote to the Maharaja, "Of what use are
bones?" The Maharaja wrote back, "They are your bones; they belong to
you, for they are your daughter's bones. She ill-treated and killed my
children, and so I had her burnt."

The Pomegranate Raja and his children lived very happily for some
time, and their dead mother, the Gulianar Rani, having a wish to see
her husband and her children, prayed to God to let her go and visit
them. God said she could go, but not in her human shape, so he changed
her into a beautiful bird, and put a pin in her head, and said, "As
soon as the pin is pulled out you will become a woman again." She flew
to the palace where the Maharaja lived, and there were great trees
about the palace. On one of these she perched at night. The doorkeeper
was lying near it. She called out, "Doorkeeper! doorkeeper!" and he
answered, "What is it? Who is it?" And she asked, "Is the Raja well?"
and the doorkeeper said, "Yes." "Are the children well?" and he said,
"Yes." "And all the servants, and camels, and horses?" "Yes." "Are you
well?" "Yes." "Have you had plenty of food?" "Yes." "What a great
donkey your Maharaja is!" And then she began to cry very much, and
pearls fell from her eyes as she cried. Then she began to laugh very
much, and great big rubies fell from her beak as she laughed. The next
morning the doorkeeper got up and felt about, and said, "What is all
this?" meaning the pearls and the rubies, for he did not know what
they were. "I will keep them." So he picked them all up and put them
into a corner