rate, she told him that while she was flying
a kite with her child fastened to its back, Katipah had come and had cut
the string, so that by her doing the child was now dead.

When the magistrate heard that, he sent and caused Katipah to be thrown
into prison, and told her that the next day she should certainly be put
to death.

Katipah went meekly, carrying her little son in one hand and her
blue-and-green kite in the other, for that had become so dear to her she
could not now part from it. And all the way to prison Bimsha followed,
mocking her, and asking, "Tell us, Katipah, where is your fine husband
now?"

In the night the West Wind came and tapped at the prison window, and
called tenderly, "Katipah, Katipah, are you there?" And when Katipah got
up from her bed of straw and looked out, there was Gamma-gata once more,
the beautiful youth whom she loved and had been wedded to, and had heard
but had not seen since.

Gamma-gata reached his hands through the bars and put them round her
face. "Katipah," he said, "you have become brave: you are fit now to
become the wife of the West Wind. To-morrow you shall travel with me all
over the world; you shall not stay in one land any more. Now give me our
son; for a little while I must take him from you. To prove your courage
you must find your own way out of this trouble which you have got into
through making a fool of Bimsha."

So Katipah gave him the child through the bars of her prison window, and
when he was gone lay down and slept till it became light.

In the morning the chief magistrate and Bimsha, together with the whole
populace, came to Katipah's cell to see her led out to death. And when
it was found that her child had disappeared, "She is a witch!" they
cried; "she has eaten it!" And the chief magistrate said that, being a
witch, instead of hanging she was to be burned.

"I have not eaten my child, and I am no witch," said Katipah, as,
taking with her her blue-and-green kite she trotted out to the place of
execution. When she was come to the appointed spot she said to the chief
magistrate, "To every criminal it is permitted to plead in defence of
himself; but because I am innocent, am I not also allowed to plead?" The
magistrate told her she might speak if she had anything to say.

"All I ask," said Katipah, "is that I may be allowed once more to fly my
blue-and-green kite as I used to do in the days when I was happy; and I
will show you soon that I am not g