id, "do drum on it just to see if the King
really will come to you." "No, I will not," she said; "for why should
I call him from his hunting when I do not want him?" "Don't mind
interrupting his hunting," they answered. "Do try if he really will
come to you when you beat your kettle-drum." So at last, just to
please them, she beat it, and the King stood before her.

"Why have you called me?" he said. "See, I have left my hunting to
come to you." "I want nothing," she answered; "I only wished to know
if you really would come to me when I beat my drum." "Very well,"
answered the King; "but do not call me again unless you really need
me." Then he returned to his hunting.

The next day, when the King had gone out hunting as usual, the four
wives again came to see the gardener's daughter. They begged and
begged her to beat her drum once more, "just to see if the King will
really come to see you this time." At first she refused, but at last
she consented. So she beat her drum, and the King came to her. But
when he found she was neither ill nor in trouble, he was angry, and
said to her, "Twice I have left my hunting and lost my game to come
to you when you did not need me. Now you may call me as much as you
like, but I will not come to you," and then he went away in a rage.

The third day the gardener's daughter fell ill, and she beat and beat
her kettle-drum; but the King never came. He heard her kettle-drum,
but he thought, "She does not really want me; she is only trying to
see if I will go to her."

Meanwhile the four other wives came to her, and they said, "Here it is
the custom before a child is born to bind its mother's eyes with a
handkerchief that she may not see it just at first. So let us bind
your eyes." She answered, "Very well, bind my eyes." The four wives
then tied a handkerchief over them.

Soon after, the gardener's daughter had a beautiful little son, with a
moon on his forehead and a star on his chin; and before the poor
mother had seen him, the four wicked wives took the boy to the nurse
and said to her, "Now you must not let this child make the least sound
for fear his mother should hear him; and in the night you must either
kill him, or else take him away, so that his mother may never see him.
If you obey our orders, we will give you a great many rupees." All
this they did out of spite. The nurse took the little child and put
him into a box, and the four wives went back to the gardener's
daughter.