Bengal Fairy Tales/A True Friend
XIII
A TRUE FRIEND
A CERTAIN prince once lived in very intimate friendship with a goat-herd. They were always together, and the prince promised his friend that on ascending the throne he would make him prime minister. In course of time the reigning king died, and was succeeded by his son, who in the intoxication of rank and power quite forgot his goat-herd friend. The latter, however, with the intention of calling on him, one day presented himself at the gate of the palace, but he was roughly driven away. The next morning it so befell that the king got up from bed with his whole body from top to toe pierced with needles, and was subject to intense suffering. He could not stand, sit, or lie down without filling the house with groans; and the whole palace was rent with misery out of sympathy for him. The queen's affliction in particular was so great that she passed her days only in heart-rending sighs and sobs.
One day, when she went to bathe in the river that flowed by the palace, she was met by a girl of unrivalled beauty, who petitioned to be kept as a slave and rewarded with the queen's diamond bracelets. The girl's request being granted, she followed her mistress. And when the latter, leaving her clothes on the bank, immersed her head in the water, the former, by some charm, assumed her shape, turning her into an ugly hag. They then returned to the palace, where the wicked girl passed as the queen. Her manners, however, were quite unlike those of the latter. She showed a very cross temper, and cast invectives on those who approached her. The people, ignorant of the ruse practised on them, were at a loss to account for the changed behaviour of their queen, but they could do nothing except patiently submit to the cruelties inflicted on them. The former queen was not an exception. She could not even see her dear husband. The most humilating work was allotted to her; and she passed her days and nights in weeping.
But better days were in store for her. One day, when proceeding towards the river to wash some of her old clothes, for new ones were never allowed her, she saw a man sitting by the roadside with a heap of bundles of thread before him, and bawling out, "I shall have a good day of it if I can get a thousand needles; the enjoyment of a prince if I have ten thousands; I shall fly triumphantly in the air if I can procure a million." The poor queen, then only a despised servant, was glad at what she heard; and promising to give the man innumerable needles if he would take them, led him to the palace, and managed to obtain for him comfortable quarters. Every one was told why he was there, and he was respectfully received. The next day he told the girl who had usurped the queen's place that it was the day of a certain festival, to be celebrated by the eating of cakes, and asked her to prepare the best ones. She knew that she was not a good hand at making cakes, and so took the assistance of the real queen. They made cakes together; those prepared by the latter being the best of their kind, while those made by the former were of the coarser sort, fit to be eaten only by peasants. All were struck with this difference, but none dared venture any remarks. The stranger, however, addressed the false queen thus: "You, a mere slave, have installed yourself as queen; but now you are caught. You are no other than the vulgar woman that was bought with a Konkun (bracelet)." At this the woman, frantic with rage, had the public executioner brought before her, and ordered him to cut off the man's head, as well as that of the real queen, who had introduced him into the royal mansion. The executioner was preparing to do her bidding when the man, his intended victim, said, "O my bundles of thread, twist yourselves into a thick and strong bond, and with it tie up the executioner's hands." The bundles obeyed their master, and the executioner was rendered powerless. The stranger then commanded some lines of his thread to enter the nostrils of the pretended queen who had ordered him to be killed. They did so, and she fell to the ground senseless. But his work was not yet fully accomplished. He had to free the king from his torments; and so, by a spell, he made each single thread in the bundles get into the eye of each needle that pierced the sufferer's body and draw it out. The exercise of magical power did not end there. The needles with the long thread in the eye of each sewed up the eyes, ears, and lips of the woman who had up to that moment masqueraded as the royal spouse. She fell to the ground and struggled in torture; while the king, having his eyes opened, saw and recognized his old friend the goat-herd, asked his pardon for having neglected him, and appointed him his prime minister. After this the two friends always remained together, the goat-herd entertaining the king in the evenings with the charming music of the flute of gold which the former had given him as a token of affection in the old days of their friendship. The queen, on the return of her former beauty and prosperity, enjoyed a happy and peaceful life, admired and adored by her husband, while the wretched woman who had supplanted her died a miserable death.