able-looking dog is my mother?' So she ordered her servants to go and throw stones at it, and drive it away, and they did so; and one large stone hit the dog's head, and she ran back, very much hurt, to her eldest daughter's house. The Ranee saw her coming, and ran out into the street and brought her in in her arms, and did all she could to make her well, saying, 'Ah, mother, mother! why did you ever leave my house?' But all her care was in vain; the poor dog died. Then the Ranee thought her husband might be vexed if he found a dead dog (an unclean animal) in the palace; so she put the body in a small room into which the Rajah hardly ever went, intending to have it reverently buried; and over it she placed a basket turned topsy-turvy.
It so happened, however, that when the Rajah came to visit his wife, as chance would have it, he went through this very room, and tripping over the upturned basket, called for a light to see what it was. Then, lo and behold! there lay the statue of a dog, life-size, composed entirely of diamonds, emeralds, and other precious stones, set in gold! So he called out to his wife, and said, 'Where did you get this beautiful dog?' And when the Ranee saw the golden dog, she was very much frightened, and, I'm sorry to say, instead of telling her husband the truth, she told a story, and said, 'Oh, it is only a present my parents sent me.'
Now see what trouble she got into for not telling the truth.
'Only,' said the Rajah; 'why, this is valuable enough to buy the whole of my kingdom. Your parents must be very rich people to be able to send you such presents as this. How is it you never told me of them? Where do they live?' [Now she had to tell another story to cover the first.] She said, 'In the jungle.' He replied, 'I will go and see them; you must take me and show me where they live.' Then the Ranee thought, 'What will the Rajah say when he finds I have been telling him such stories? He will order my head to be cut off.' So she said, 'You must first give me a palanquin, and I will go into the jungle and tell them you are coming;' [but really she determined to kill herself, and so get out of her difficulties].
Away she went; and when she had gone some distance in her palanquin, she saw a large white ants' nest, over which hung a cobra, with its mouth wide open; then the Ranee thought, 'I will go to that cobra and put my finger in his mouth, that he may bite me, and so I shall die.' So she ordered the palkee-bearers to wait,
