Katipah was
laughing when she picked up her kite and ran home. And Bimsha thought,
"Is it witchcraft, or did the child fall into the sea?"

In the night the West Wind came and tapped at Katipah's window; and
rising from her bed, she heard Gamma-gata's voice calling tenderly to
her. When she opened the window to the blindness of the black night, he
kissed her, and putting the little one in her arms, said, "Wait only a
little while longer, Katipah, and I will come again to you. Already you
are learning to be brave."

In the morning Bimsha looked out, and there sat Katipah in her own
doorway, with the child safe and sound in her arms. And, plain to see,
he had on a beautiful golden coat, and little silver wings were fastened
to his feet, and his head was garnished with a wreath of flowers the
like of which were never seen on earth. He was like a child of noble
birth and fortune, and the small motherly face of Katipah shone with
pride and happiness as she nursed him.

"Where did you steal those things?" asked Bimsha, "and how did that
child come back? I thought he had fallen into the sea and been drowned."

"Ah!" answered Katipah slily, "he was up in the clouds when the kite
left him, and he came down with the rain last night. It is nothing
wonderful. You were foolish, Bimsha, if you thought that to fall into
the clouds would do the child any harm. Up there you can have no idea
how beautiful it is--such fields of gold, such wonderful gardens, such
flowers and fruits: it is from there that all the beauty and wealth of
the world must come. See all that he has brought with him! and it is all
your doing, because you cut the cord of the kite. Oh, clever Bimsha!"

As soon as Bimsha heard that, she ran and got a big kite, and fastening
her own child into the strings, started it to fly. "Do not think,"
cried the envious woman, "that you are the only one whose child is to
be clothed in gold! My child is as good as yours any day; wait, and you
shall see!"

So presently, when the kite was well up into the clouds, as Katipah's
kite had been, she cut the cord, thinking surely that the same fortune
would be for her as had been for Katipah. But instead of that, all at
once the kite fell headlong to earth, child and all; and when she ran to
pick him up, Bimsha found that her son's life had fallen forfeit to her
own enviousness and folly.

The wicked woman went green and purple with jealousy and rage; and
running to the chief magist