of to the ignorant people in the
jungle, they would have given him in return enough money to keep them in
food and clothing all the hot season and build a new house into the
bargain.

Ai looked at her and said: "Indeed, that is a thing good to marvel at.
Why, I know where there are coolie-basket loads of such red stones in
the dry bed of a river near where I gather sticks for fire-wood in the
jungle, waiting for anybody to carry away, and I never thought them
worth the labor of taking to the bazaar."

The princess was full of joy when she heard this, and the next morning
they borrowed two coolie baskets from a man in the village. Bright and
early they went to the river bed, and there, even as Ai had said, were
basket loads of fine rubies. They gathered them up carefully and buried
most of them, covering over the hole with a flat stone, so that no one
would discover their hoard, and then the princess, picking out a double
handful of the largest and clearest ones, sent them to her father.

The king, when he saw the jewels, instead of being pleased, fell into a
great passion, called the unfortunate _amat loeng_ into his presence, and
after rating him soundly, deprived him of all his goods, houses, and
lands, deposed him from office, and drove him from his presence as poor
as Ai himself had been.

"I ordered you to call a poor man," roared the king to the trembling man
before him. "I said he was to have no goods or property at all, and here
the very next day he sends me a double handful of the very best rubies I
ever saw in my life."

In vain the culprit assured the king that the day before Ai was
certainly the poorest man in the whole kingdom, and complained that the
jewels must have been the work of some _hpea_, whom he had unwittingly
offended, and who had therefore determined on his ruin in revenge. The
king would listen to no excuse, and the unhappy _amat_ was glad to crawl
from his presence before resentment had carried him to the length of
ordering his execution.

The very next night a wonderful golden deer entered the royal garden
where the king was accustomed to sit when it became too warm in the
palace, and after doing an immense amount of mischief, eating favorite
flowers, and otherwise destroying and ruining the garden, it leaped over
the fence and disappeared in the early morning fog, just as the guards
were arousing themselves from sleep. It was in truth not a golden deer
as the guards had told the kin