and make
everything ready for you, and then I will come and marry you and take
you home."

So it was all settled, and he ate some food, and returned to his
father. He told his father and mother all that had happened to the
Bel-Princess, and how her body had turned into the beautiful garden
and palace that stood on the big plain; and of the little birds; and
of the underground palace in which she now lived. So his father said
that he and the prince's mother, and his six brothers and their wives,
would all take him in great state to the palace and marry him to the
beautiful Bel-Princess; and that then they would all return to their
own palace, and all live together. "But first the wicked woman must be
killed," said the King.

So he ordered his servants to take her to the jungle and kill her, and
throw her body away. So they took her away at four o'clock in the
afternoon and killed her.

One morning two or three days later, the prince and his father and
mother, and brothers and sisters-in-law, went to the great palace on
the wide plain; and there, in the evening, the king's youngest son was
married to the Bel-Princess. And when his father and mother and
brothers, and his brothers' wives, saw her, they all said, "It is
quite true. She is indeed a Bel-Princess!"

After the wedding they all returned to the King's palace, and there
they lived together. But the King and his sons used often to go to the
palace on the great plain to eat the air; and they used to lend it
sometimes to other rajas and kings.

Told by Muniya.

[Decoration]

XXII.

HOW THE RAJA'S SON WON THE PRINCESS LABAM.

In a country there was a Raja who had an only son who every day went
out to hunt. One day the Rani, his mother, said to him, "You can hunt
wherever you like on these three sides; but you must never go to the
fourth side." This she said because she knew if he went on the fourth
side he would hear of the beautiful Princess Labam, and that then he
would leave his father and mother and seek for the princess.

The young prince listened to his mother, and obeyed her for some time;
but one day, when he was hunting on the three sides where he was
allowed to go, he remembered what she had said to him about the fourth
side, and he determined to go and see why she had forbidden him to
hunt on that side. When he got there, he found himself in a jungle,
and nothing in the jungle but a quantity of parrots, who lived in it.
The young R