reject kings and fall in love
with a thief like me? How strange women are!' Therefore he laughed from
astonishment."

When the goblin heard this, he immediately slipped from the king's
shoulder and escaped to his home. But the king was not discouraged. He
followed him to the sissoo tree.

FOURTEENTH GOBLIN

_The Man who changed into a Woman at Will. Was his wife his or the other
man's?_

So the king went back as before under the sissoo tree, put the goblin
on his shoulder, and started toward the monk. And as he walked along,
the goblin told the king a story.

There was a city called Shivapur in Nepal. Long ago a king named
Glory-banner lived there, and he deserved the name. He laid the burden
of government on his counsellor named Ocean-of-Wisdom, and devoted
himself to a life of pleasure with his wife Moonbright.

In course of time a daughter named Moonlight was born to them, pleasing
as the moonlight to the eyes of men. When she grew up, she went one day
in spring with her servants to a festival in the garden.

There she was seen by a Brahman youth named Master-mind, the son of
Rich, who had come there to the festival. When he saw her plucking
flowers with one arm uplifted, he went mad with love. His heart was
taken captive by the gay maiden, and he was no longer master of his
mind.

He thought: "Is she the goddess of love, plucking the spring flowers in
person? Or is she a forest goddess, come here to worship the
spring-time?"

Then the princess saw him, like a new god of love incarnate. The moment
her eyes fell on him, she fell in love, forgetting her flowers and even
her own limbs. While they looked at each other, lost in love like
people in a picture, a great wail of anguish arose. They lifted their
heads to learn what the matter was, and just then an elephant that had
broken his chain, maddened by the scent of another mad elephant, came
by, crushing the people in his path. He had thrown off his driver and
the ankus hung from him as he ran. And everyone fled in terror.

But the youth Master-mind ran up in a hurry and took the princess in
his arms. And with a mixture of fear and love and modesty she half
embraced him as he carried her far out of the elephant's path. Then her
people gradually gathered, and she went to the palace, looking at the
youth, and burning over the flame of love.

And the youth went home from the garden, and thought: "I cannot live, I
cannot exist a moment without her. I m