y much. Instead
therefore of at once refusing to have anything to do with the matter,
she said: "Bring me fifty gold pieces now, and promise me another
fifty when the queen is sent away from the palace, and I will tell
you what to do."

The wicked woman promised all this at once. The very next night she
brought the first fifty pieces of gold to the cave, and Asoka-Mala
told her that she must get the barber, who saw the king alone every
day, to tell him he had found out a secret about the queen. "You must
tell the barber all you have already told me. But be very careful to
give some proof of your story. For if you do not do so, you will only
have wasted the fifty gold pieces you have already given to me; and,
more than that, you will be terribly punished for trying to hurt the
queen, whom everybody loves."

9. Do you think this plot against Kadali-Garbha was likely to succeed?

10. Can you think of any way in which the wise woman might have helped
the queen and also have gained a reward for herself?

CHAPTER VI

The wicked woman went back to the palace, thinking all the way to
herself, "How can I get a proof of what is not true?" At last an
idea came into her head. She knew that the queen loved to wander
in the forest, and that she was not afraid of the wild creatures,
but seemed to understand their language. She would tell the barber
that Kadali-Garbha was a witch and knew the secrets of the woods;
that she had been seen gathering wild herbs, some of them poisonous,
and had been heard muttering strange words to herself as she did so.

Early the next morning the cruel woman went to see the barber, and
promised him a reward if he would tell the king what she had found
out about his wife. "He won't believe you at first," she said; "but
you must go on telling him till he does. You are clever, enough,"
she added, "to make up something he will believe if what I have
thought of is no good."

The barber, who had served the king for many years, would not at first
agree to help to make him unhappy. But he too liked money very much,
and in the end he promised to see what he could do if he was well
paid for it. He was, as the wicked woman had said, clever enough;
and he knew from long experience just how to talk to his master. He
began by asking the king if he had heard of the lovely woman who was
sometimes seen by the woodmen wandering about alone in the forest,
with wild creatures following her. Remembering how he ha