at fish, while we gained no more than a
lac of gold mohurs. Do now as I bid you, that you may become Ranee in
her stead." She then went on to instruct her that she must invite the
Ranee down to the river-bank, and there beg her to let her try on her
jewels, and while putting them on give her a push and drown her in the
river.

The girl consented, and standing by the river-bank, said to her
stepsister, "Sister, may I try on your jewels?--how pretty they are!"
"Yes," said the Ranee, "and we shall be able to see in the river how
they look." So, undoing her necklaces, she clasped them round the
other's neck. But while she was doing so her stepsister gave her a
push, and she fell backward into the water. The girl watched to
see that the body did not rise, and then, running back, said to her
mother, "Mother, here are all the jewels, and she will trouble us no
more." But it happened that just when her stepsister pushed the Ranee
into the river her old friend the Seven-headed Cobra chanced to be
swimming across it, and seeing the little Ranee likely to be drowned,
he carried her on his back until he reached his hole, into which he
took her safely. Now this hole, in which the Cobra and his wife and
all his little ones lived, had two entrances,--the one under the water
and leading to the river, and the other above water, leading out into
the open fields. To this upper end of his hole the Cobra took the
Muchie Ranee, where he and his wife took care of her; and there she
lived with them for some time. Meanwhile, the wicked Fakeer's wife,
having dressed up her own daughter in all the Ranee's jewels, took her
to the palace, and said to the Muchie Rajah, "See, I have brought your
wife, my dear daughter, back safe and well." The Rajah looked at her,
and thought, "This does not look like my wife." However, the room was
dark and the girl was cleverly disguised, and he thought he might be
mistaken. Next day he said again: "My wife must be sadly changed or
this cannot be she, for she was always bright and cheerful. She had
pretty loving ways and merry words, while this woman never opens
her lips." Still, he did not like to seem to mistrust his wife, and
comforted himself by saying, "Perhaps she is tired with the long
journey." On the third day, however, he could bear the uncertainty
no longer, and tearing off her jewels, saw, not the face of his own
little wife, but another woman. Then he was very angry and turned her
out of doors, saying