ranches with a
flock of crows about her.

The Rajah climbed the tree and brought the girl down, while the crows
circled about his head, cawing hoarsely.

"Tell me, beautiful one, who are you? And how come you here in the
depths of the jungle?" asked the Rajah.

Weeping, the Princess told him all her story except that the crows
were her brothers; she let him believe that her brothers had gone off
hunting and had never returned.

"Do not weep any more," said the Rajah. "You shall come home with me
and be my Ranee, and I will have no other but you alone."

When the Princess heard this she smiled, for the Rajah was very
handsome, and already she loved him.

She was very glad to go with him and be his wife. "But my crows must
go with me," she said, "for they have fed me for many long days and
have been my only companions."

To this the Rajah willingly consented, and he took her home with him
to the palace; and the crows circled about above them, following
closely all the way.

[Illustration: The Rajah brought the girl down, while the crows circled
about his head.]

When the old Rajah and Ranee (the young Rajah's father and mother) saw
what a very beautiful girl he had brought back with him from the
jungle they gladly welcomed her as a daughter-in-law.

The young Ranee would have been very happy now in her new life, for
she loved her husband dearly, but always the thought of her brothers
was like a weight upon her heart. She had a number of trees planted
outside her windows so that her brothers might rest there close to
her. She cooked rice for them herself and fed them with her own hands,
and often she sat under the trees and stroked them and talked to them
while her tears fell upon their glossy feathers.

After a while the young Ranee had a son, and he was called Ramchundra.
He grew up straight and tall, and he was the joy of his mother's eyes.

One day, when he was fourteen years old, and big and strong for his
age, he sat in the garden with his mother. The crows flew down about
them, and she began to caress and talk to them as usual. "Ah, my dear
ones!" she cried, "how sad is your fate! If I could but release you,
how happy I should be."

"Mother," said the boy, "I can plainly see that these crows are not
ordinary birds. Tell me whence come they, and why you weep over them
and talk to them as you do?"

At first his mother would not tell him, but in the end she related to
him the whole story of who she w