, "Begone; since you are but the wretched tool of
others, I spare your life." But of the Fakeer's wife he said to his
guards, "Fetch that woman here instantly; for unless she can tell me
where my wife is, I will have her hanged." It chanced, however, that
the Fakeer's wife had heard of the Muchie Rajah having turned her
daughter out of doors; so, fearing his anger, she hid herself, and was
not to be found.

Meantime, the Muchie Ranee, not knowing how to get home, continued to
live in the great Seven-headed Cobra's hole, and he and his wife and
all his family were very kind to her, and loved her as if she had been
one of them; and there her little son was born, and she called him
Muchie Lal, after the Muchie Rajah, his father. Muchie Lal was a
lovely child, merry and brave, and his playmates all day long were the
young Cobras. When he was about three years old a bangle-seller came
by that way, and the Muchie Ranee bought some bangles from him and put
them on her boy's wrists and ankles; but by the next day, in playing,
he had broke them all. Then, seeing the bangle-seller, the Ranee
called him again and bought some more, and so on every day until the
bangle-seller got quite rich from selling so many bangles for the
Muchie Lal; for the Cobra's hole was full of treasure, and he gave the
Muchie Ranee as much money to spend every day as she liked. There was
nothing she wished for he did not give her, only he would not let her
try to get home to her husband, which she wished more than all.
When she asked him he would say: "No, I will not let you go. If your
husband comes here and fetches you, it is well; but I will not allow
you to wander in search of him through the land alone."

And so she was obliged to stay where she was.

All this time the poor Muchie Rajah was hunting in every part of the
country for his wife, but he could learn no tidings of her. For
grief and sorrow at losing her he had gone almost distracted, and did
nothing but wander from place to place, crying, "She is gone! she is
gone!" Then, when he had long inquired without avail of all the people
in her native village about her, he one day met a bangle-seller and
said to him, "Whence do you come?" The bangle-seller answered, "I have
just been selling bangles to some people who live in a Cobra's hole
in the river-bank." "People! What people?" asked the Rajah. "Why,"
answered the bangle-seller, "a woman and a child; the child is the
most beautiful I ever saw