Page:Old Deccan Days.djvu/70

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32
OLD DECCAN DAYS.

It would be impossible to count all the rich and costly presents that the Rakshas' Rajah and Ranee gave Tara Bai. There were jewels enough to fill the seas; diamonds and emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls; gold and silver, costly hangings, carved ebony and ivory,—more than a man could count in a hundred years; for the Rajah gave his daughter a guard of 100,000,000,000,000 Rakshas, and each Rakshas carried a bundle of riches, and each bundle was as big as a house! and so they took leave of the Rakshas' Rajah and Ranee, and left the Rakshas' country.

When they got to the land of the Rajah who had dreamed about the silver tree, with leaves of gold, and fruit of pearl (because the number of their retinue was so great, that if they had come into a country they would have devoured all that was in it like a swarm of locusts), Seventee Bai and Tara Bai determined that Tara Bai should stay with the guard of Rakshas in the jungle, on the borders of the Rajah's dominions, and that Seventee Bai should go to the city, as she had promised, to marry the Rajah's daughter. And there they stayed a week, and the Rajah's daughter was married with great pomp and ceremony to Seventee Bai; and when they left the city the Rajah gave Seventee Bai and the bride, his daughter, horses and camels and elephants, and rich robes and jewels innumerable; and he and all his court accompanied them to the borders of the land.

Thence they went to the country where lived the Princess whose great marble bath Seventee Bai had jumped over; and there Seventee Bai was married to her, amid great rejoicings, and the wedding was one of surpassing splendour, and the wedding festivities lasted for three whole days.

And leaving that city, they travelled on until they reached the city where Seventee Bai had tamed the Rajah's wild pony, and there they spent two days in great honour and splendour, and Seventee Bai married that Princess also; then with her five wives,—that is to say, Hera Bai the Rajah of the Cobra's daughter, Tara Bai the Rajah of the Rakshas' daughter, and the three other Princesses—and a great tribe of attendants and elephants and camels and horses, she returned to the city where she had left Parbuttee Bai.

Now when the news was brought to Seventee Bai's master (the friendly Rajah) of the great cavalcade that was approaching his city, he became very much alarmed, taking Seventee Bai for some strange Rajah who had come to make war upon him. When Seventee Bai heard how alarmed he was, she sent a messenger