'Oh, he ran away, because he was so miserable; he has a cobra that lives in his throat,' answered the second.
'Can no one get it out?' said the first.
'No,' replied the other;' because they do not know the secret.'—'What secret?' asked the first Cobra.—'Don't you know?' said the second; 'why, if his wife only took a few marking nuts,[1] and pounded them well, and mixed them in cocoanut oil, and set the whole on fire, and hung the Rajah, her husband, head downwards up in a tree above it, the smoke, rising upwards, would instantly kill the Cobra in his mouth, which would tumble down dead.'
'I never heard of that before,' said the first Cobra.
'Didn't you?' exclaimed the second; 'why, if they did the same thing at the mouth of your hole, they'd kill you in no time; and then, perhaps, they might find all the fine treasure you have there!'—'Don't joke in that way,' said the first Cobra, 'I don't like it; 'and he crawled away quite offended, and the second Cobra followed him.
No sooner had the Princess heard this, than she determined to try the experiment. So next morning she sent for all the villagers living near (who all knew and loved her, and would do anything she told them, because she was the Rajah's daughter), and bade them take a great, caldron and fill it with cocoanut oil, and pound down an immense number of marking nuts and throw them into it, and then bring the caldron to her. They did so, and she set the whole on fire, and caused Vicram to be hung up in a tree overhead; and as soon as the smoke from the caldron rose in the air it suffocated the Cobra in Vicram Maharajah's throat, which fell down quite dead. Then the Rajah Vicram said to his wife, 'O worthy Buccoulee, what a noble woman you are! you have delivered me from this torment, which was more than all the wise men in my kingdom could do.'
Buccoulee next caused the caldron of oil to be placed close to the hole of the first Cobra, which she had heard speaking the night before, and he was suffocated.
She then ordered the people to dig him out of his hole; and in it they found a vast amount of treasure—gold, silver, and jewels. Then Buccoulee sent for royal robes for herself and her husband, and bade him cut his hair and shave; and when they were all ready, she took the remainder of the treasure, and returned with it to her father's house; and her father and mother, who had re-
- ↑ Semecarpus Anacardium.
