pray you, first accomplish the duty on which I am bound, and on my way home I will come through this city and claim my bride.' At this they were both pleased, and the Rajah said, 'It is well spoken. Do not let us hinder you from keeping faith with your own Rajah. Go your way. We shall eagerly await your return, when you shall claim the Princess and all your possessions, and we will have such a gay wedding as was not since the world began.' And they went out with her to the borders of their land, and showed her on her way.
So the Wuzeer's daughter travelled on in search of the Rakshas' country, until at last one day she came in sight of another fine large town. Here she rested in the house for travellers for some days. Now the Rajah of this country had a very beautiful daughter, who was his only child, and for her he had built a splendid bath. It was like a little sea, and had high marble walls all round, with a hedge of spikes at the top of the walls—so high, that at a distance it looked like a great castle. The young Princess was very fond of it, and she vowed she would only marry a man who could jump across her bath on horseback. This had happened some years before, but no one had been able to do it, which grieved the Rajah and Ranee very much; for they wished to see their daughter happily married. And they said to her, 'We shall both be dead before you get a husband. What folly is this! to expect that any one should be able to jump over those high marble walls, with the spikes at the top.' The Princess only answered, 'Then I will never marry. It matters not; I will never have a husband who has not jumped those walls.'
So the Rajah caused it to be proclaimed throughout the land, that he would give his daughter in marriage, and great riches, to whoever could jump, on horseback, over the Princess's bath.
All this Seventee Bai learnt as soon as she arrived in the town, and she said, 'To-morrow I will try and jump over the Princess's bath.' The country people said to her, 'You speak foolishly: it is quite impossible.' She replied, 'Heaven, in which I trust, will help me.' So next day she rose up, and saddled her horse, and led him in front of the palace, and there she sprang on his back, and, going at full gallop, leapt over the marble walls, over the spikes high up in the air, and down on to the ground on the other side of the bath; and this she did three times, which, when the Rajah saw, he was filled with joy, and sent for Seventee Bai, and said, 'Tell me your name, brave Prince; for you are the only man
