and he also held up the second mirror saying that there was another
Rakhas. The Rakhas was fascinated at the sight of his own reflection;
when he grinned or opened his mouth the reflection did the same; and
while he was amusing himself with making different grimaces Jhalka
suddenly cut him down with the battleaxe, and he fell down dead. Then
Jhalka cut off the ears and tongue and toes and hastened with them
to the Raja. When it was found that the Rakhas was really dead the
Raja assembled all his subjects and in their presence married Jhalka
to his daughter and made over to him half the kingdom and gave him
horses and elephants and half of everything in his palace.

XCVI. The Children and the Vultures.

Once upon a time all the women of a village went to the jungle to
gather _karla_ fruit; and one of them was pregnant. In the jungle she
felt that her time was come and she went aside without telling any
of her friends and gave birth to twin boys. The other women went on
gathering fruit and when they had filled their baskets and were on
their way home they noticed that one of their number was missing,
but as it was late they were afraid to go back and look for her,
and besides they felt sure that she must have been devoured by some
wild animal.

Meanwhile the mother of the twins began to call to her friends,
but they were far out of hearing; so she debated whether she should
carry home the two babes or her basket of _karla_ fruit; she did
not feel strong enough to carry both the infants in her arms and so
she decided to take the basket of fruit, especially as she would
probably have plenty more children, while the _karla_ fruit could
not be replaced. She covered the twins with leaves of the Asan tree
and went home.

But when her husband heard what had happened he was very angry,
and scolded her well; she could easily have thrown away the fruit
and carried home the children in the basket instead of taking so
much trouble about the _karla_ fruit, as if no one had ever seen
any before. He wanted to take a few friends and go and look for the
children at once; but his father and mother begged him not to risk his
life in the jungle at night; the woman had been a fool but that could
not be remedied; people must learn by experience; as the Hindu proverb
says "When your caste goes, wisdom comes." They could not allow the
breadwinner of the family to risk his life; though the roof and doors
of the house had gone, the wal