'If you will,' he answered, 'you may give them some of your mango, and then they also will each have a child.'
So saying, he faded from her sight, and the Sowkar's wife returned, glad and joyful, through the wilderness and the river of fire, to where the Ranee and the Dancing-woman were waiting for her on the other side. When they saw her, they said, 'Well, Sowkar's wife, what news?' She answered, 'I have found Mahadeo, and he has given me this mango, of which if we eat we shall each have a child.' And she took the mango, and squeezing it, gave the juice to the Ranee, and the skin she gave to the Nautch woman, and the pulp and the stone she ate herself.
Then these three women returned to their own homes; Coplinghee Ranee and the Dancing-woman to the Madura Tinivelly country, and the Sowkar's wife to very, very far beyond that, even the land where her husband lived, and whence she had first started on her journey.
But, on their return, all their friends only laughed at them, and the Sowkar said to his wife, 'I cannot see much good in your mad twelve years' journey; you only come back looking like a beggar, and all the world laughs at you.'—'I don't care,' she answered; 'I have seen Mahadeo, and eaten of the mango, and I shall have a child.' And within a while it came to pass that there was born to the Sowkar and his wife a little son, and on the very same day Coplinghee Ranee had a daughter, and the Nautch woman had a daughter.
Then were they all very happy, and sent everywhere to tell their friends the good news; and each gave, according to her power, a great feast to the poor, as a thank-offering to Mahadeo, who had been merciful to them. And the Sowkar's wife called her son 'Koila,'[1] in memory of the mango stone; and the Nautch woman called her daughter 'Moulee;'[2] and the little Princess was named Chandra Bai,[3] for she was as fair and beautiful as the white moon.
Chandra Ranee was very beautiful, the most beautiful child in all that country, so pretty and delicately made that everybody, when they saw her, loved her. She was born, moreover, with, on her ankles, two of the most costly anklets that ever were seen. They were made of gold and very precious stones, dazzling to look at, like the sun. No one had ever seen any like them before.
