how they look.' So, undoing her necklaces she clasped them round the other's neck; but whilst she was doing so, her stepsister gave her a push, and she fell backwards into the water. The girl watched to see that the body did not rise, and then, running back, said to her mother, 'Mother, here are all the jewels; and she will trouble us no more.' But it happened that just when her step-sister pushed the Ranee into the river, her old friend the Seven-headed Cobra chanced to be swimming across it, and seeing the little Ranee like to be drowned, he carried her on his back until he reached his hole, into which he took her safely. Now this hole, in which the Cobra and his wife and all his little ones lived, had two entrances—the one under water and leading to the river, and the other above water, leading out into the open fields. To this upper end of his hole the Cobra took the Muchie-Ranee, and there he and his wife took care of her; and there she lived with them for some time. Meanwhile the wicked Fakeer's wife, having dressed up her own daughter in all the Ranee's jewels, took her to the palace, and said to the Muchie-Rajah, 'See, I have brought your wife, my dear daughter, back safe and well.' The Rajah looked at her, and thought, 'This does not look like my wife.' However, the room was dark, and the girl cleverly disguised, and he thought he might be mistaken. Next day he said again, 'My wife must be sadly changed, or this cannot be she; for she was always bright and cheerful. She had pretty loving ways and merry words; while this woman never opens her lips.' Still he did not like to seem to mistrust his wife, and comforted himself by saying, 'Perhaps she is tired with the long journey.' On the third day, however, he could bear the uncertainty no longer, and tearing off her jewels saw, not the face of his own little wife, but another woman. Then he was very angry, and turned her out of doors, saying, 'Begone! since you are but the wretched tool of others, I spare your life.' But of the Fakeer's wife he said to his guards, 'Fetch that woman here instantly; for unless she can tell me where my wife is, I will have her hanged!' It chanced, however, that the Fakeer's wife had heard of the Muchie-Rajah having turned her daughter out of doors; so, fearing his anger, she hid herself, and was not to be found.
Meantime, the Muchie-Ranee, not knowing how to get home, continued to live in the great Seven-headed Cobra's hole, and he and his wife and all his family were very kind to her, and loved her as if she had been one of themselves; and there her little
