the time you come back, the
buffaloes will have wandered off for their afternoon grazing." So Dukhu
agreed to wait while she brought the rice, and she got up and moved
away and disappeared behind some bushes, but a minute later Dukhu saw
her come smiling towards him with a pot of rice on her head; though
how she had fetched it so quickly he could not make out. She came to
him and put it down and told him to wash his hands and come and eat
his dinner. Dukhu asked her whether she had had her own dinner and she
said that she would go back and have that later. Then he proposed that
she should eat part of what she had brought; and she said that she
would do so, if he did not want it all. Dukhu resolved to test her,
for it would be a proof of true love, if she ate what he left over. So
after eating half the rice he said that he was satisfied and when she
found that Dukhu would eat no more she took what was left; then he was
satisfied that she really loved him and they began to talk of getting
married, and he told her that there would be no difficulty about it,
as his elder brother Lukhu was already married.

Then Dukhu asked the _bonga_ to take him to her house to see her
parents, so one day she led him into the pool and as he went in, the
water never came above his ankles; and somehow they passed along a
broad road until they came to the _bonga_ girl's house, and this was
full of tigers and leopards and snakes. At the sight of them Dukhu was
too frightened to speak; the _bonga_ said that she would not let them
touch him and offered him a large coiled-up snake to sit on; but he
would not sit down till she came and sat by his side. Then the _bonga_
father and mother asked their daughter whether this was her husband,
and when she said "yes" they came and made obeisance to him.

After they had had their dinner she took him back and he knew that
she was a _bonga_; but still he could not give her up. After this
the _bonga_ girl brought Dukhu his dinner every day on the bank of
the river, and he never went home for his midday-meal at all. His
brother's wife asked him why he did not come home and he said that
he did not get hungry and was content with some buffalo's milk; but
she did not believe him and resolved to watch and see who brought
him his dinner, but though she went and watched every day she only
saw him sitting alone, and the _bonga_ girl was invisible to her. But
one day she saw him disappear into the pool, and come out