is and their sons. The Raja
wished him to come to the palace but he insisted that his mother
should first be sent for. This was at once done.

Then the Raja had a wide and deep well dug and announced that a
Puja was to be performed at the opening of the well. To the ceremony
came the six Ranis and their sons. As they all knelt at the edge of
the well doing puja the Raja had them pushed into it, so that they
were all drowned. Thus the wicked were punished and the mongoose boy
eventually succeeded to his father's kingdom.

(21)--The Prince and the Tigress.

Once upon a time there was a Raja who had seven sons. One day a tigress
came to the palace and asked the Raja to allow one of his sons to be
her servant and look after her cattle. The Raja consented and ordered
his eldest son to go with the tigress. The young man took his axe
and bow and arrows and went with the tigress to her cave. When he
got there he asked where were the cattle which he was to tend. The
tigress pointed out to him all the bears which were roaming in the
jungle and said that they were her cattle. By the cave stood a large
rock and the tigress told the prince to take his axe and cut it in
two. The prince tried, but the rock only turned the edge of his axe
and he quite failed to cut it. The tigress being thus satisfied that
the prince had no superhuman powers sprang upon him and killed him
and devoured his body. Then she went back to the Raja and said that
she had too much work to be done, that she wished him to give her
a second son. The Raja agreed, but this prince met the same fate as
the first; and in succession, all the sons of the Raja, except the
youngest, went with the tigress and were devoured by her. At last
the youngest son went with the tigress: when bidden to cut the rock
in two, he easily accomplished the task. Then the tigress knew that
she had met her master and ran into her cave. Looking into the cave,
the prince saw the bones of his dead brothers. Gathering the bones
together, he prayed for fire to burn them, and fire fell from above
and burned the bones.

Then he climbed a tree in order to be out of the reach of the tigress,
and the tigress came and sat at the foot of the tree so that he could
not descend. Then he prayed again and wind arose and wafted him away
and set him down by a house where lived an old man and his wife. The
tigress followed in pursuit, but the aged couple hid the prince and
assured the tigress that he