ungle with you, if you like, if you will only come."

So he took her home to his father's house, and the old Rajah and Ranee
wondered much at this jungle lady, when they saw her rare beauty, her
modest, gentle ways and her queenly grace. Then the young Rajah told
them how she was a persecuted Princess, and asked their leave to marry
her; and because her loving goodness had won all hearts, they gave
their consent as joyfully as if she had been daughter of the greatest
of Rajahs, and brought with her a splendid dower; and they called her
Draupadi Bai.

Draupadi had some beautiful trees planted in front of her palace, in
which the crows, her brothers, used to live, and she daily with her
own hands boiled a quantity of rice, which she would scatter for them
to eat as they flocked around her. Now some time after this, Draupadi
Bai had a son, who was called Ramchundra. He was a very good boy, and
his mother, Draupadi Bai, used to take him to school every morning,
and go and fetch him home in the evening. But one day, when Ramchundra
was about fourteen years old, it happened that Draupadi Bai did not go
to fetch him home from school as she was wont; and on his return he
found her sitting under the trees in front of her palace, stroking the
glossy black crows that flocked around her, and weeping.

Then Ramchundra threw down his bundle of books and said to his
mother, putting his elbows on her knees, and looking up in her face,
"Mammy, dear, tell me why you are now crying, and what it is that
makes you so often sad."

"Oh, nothing, nothing," she answered.

"Yes, dear mother," said he, "do tell me. Can I help you? If I can, I
will."

Draupadi Bai shook her head. "Alas, no, my son," she said; "you are
too young to help me; and as for my grief, I have never told it to any
one. I cannot tell it to you now." But Ramchundra continued begging
and praying her to tell him, until at last she did; relating to him
all her own and his uncles' sad history; and lastly, how they had been
changed by a Rakshas into the black crows he saw around him.

Then the boy sprang up and said, "Which way did your brothers take
when they met the Rakshas?"

"How can I tell?" she asked.

"Why," he answered, "I thought perhaps you might remember on which
side they returned that first night to you, after being bewitched."

"Oh," she said, "they came toward the tree from that part of the
jungle which lies in a straight line behind the palace."

"Ver