as ever; nevertheless, my opinion is, that the spirit animating the body is not the spirit of the Rajah, but that some one else is possessed of the power given to him by Gunputti, and has taken advantage of it to personate him. This we must try and discover. Do therefore as I tell you, that we may put the matter to proof. Make to-day for your husband's dinner some very coarse and common currie, and give it to him. If he complains that it is not as good as usual, I am making a mistake; but if, on the contrary, he says nothing about it, you will know that my words are true, and that he is not Vicram Maharajah.'
Anar Ranee did as the Wuzeer advised, and afterwards came to him and said, 'Father' (for so she always called him), 'I have been much astonished at the result of the trial. I made the currie very carelessly, and it was as coarse and common as possible; but the Rajah did not even complain. I feel convinced it is as you say; but what can we do?'
'We will not,' answered the Wuzeer, 'cast him into prison, since he inhabits your husband's body; but neither you nor any of the Rajah's relations must have any friendship with, or so much as speak to him; and if he speak to any of you, let whoever it be immediately begin to quarrel with him, whereby he will find the life of a Rajah not so agreeable as he anticipated, and may be induced the sooner to return to his proper form.'
Anar Ranee instructed all her husband's relations and friends as Butti had advised, and the Carpenter's son began to think the life of a Rajah not at all as pleasant as he had fancied, and would, if he could, have gladly returned to his own body again; but, having no power to preserve it, his spirit had no sooner left it than it began to decay, and at the end of three days was quite destroyed; so that he had no alternative but to remain where he was.
Meantime the real Vicram Maharajah had flown, in the form, of a parrot, very far, far away, until he reached a large banyan tree, where there were a thousand other pretty pollies, whom he joined, making their number a thousand and one. Every day the parrots flew away to get food, and every night they returned to roost in the great banyan tree.
Now it chanced that a hunter had often gone through that part of the jungle, and noticed the banyan tree and the parrots, and said to himself, 'If I could only catch the thousand and one parrots that nightly roost in that tree, I should not be so often hungry as
