be taken away in the palanquin, with the blinds drawn down, to attend, as he thought, on his friend's wife.
On the morrow the King, accompanied by the two little Princes, went to the house of the merchant, but to his great consternation found the shutters up and no living soul within. Now at length the bitter truth dawned upon him. The merchant had taken away his wife by false pretences. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he searched all over the city for the Queen, but alas! in vain.
Then, in the agony of his despair, leaving her rescue to Providence, he took each of his sons by the hand and went on his way, not caring whithersoever fate might lead them.
Before they had gone very far, however, a stream stopped their progress. The King, unable to get over to the other side burdened with the two Princes, left one on the bank (intending to return and take him across), while he lifted the other on his shoulders and so began to cross the stream. Hardly had he gone half way when a tiger, which had come apparently to drink water, snapped up with a growl the son who had been left behind, and made for the jungle; and as the King all too suddenly turned round to look behind, the boy on his shoulder was jerked into the water and drowned, or carried away by the current.
Thus for the King misfortunes came, not singly, but in battalions. Having lost all his dear and near ones, he journeyed on by himself, beating his breast and rending the air with lamentations like one possessed; and in this condition he came wandering into the territory of another Prince.
By a curious chain of accidents, the latter had just
