he said to his mother, "Why have we lived all this while in the well?"
His mother and all the other wives told him about the wicked demon who
lived in his father's palace, and how the king believed her to be a
beautiful girl and had married her, and of all the evil things that
she had done to them, and how she had made the king send them to the
jungle and have their eyes cut out and given to her, and how from not
being able to see they had fallen into this well, and how they had
eaten all his brothers, because they were so very hungry they thought
they should die--all but his mother at least, for she would not eat
the other wives' children and would not kill her own little son. "Let
me climb out of this well," said the boy, who determined in his heart
that he would kill this wicked demon one day. His mother said, "No,
stay here; you are too young to leave the well."

The boy did not listen to her, but scrambled out. Then he saw they
were in a wide plain in the jungle. He ran after a few birds, caught
and killed them. Then he roasted the birds and brought them with some
water to his seven mothers in the well. When they had eaten them and
drunk the water, they were happy and worshipped God. The six mothers
who had eaten their children were full of sorrow, and said, "If our
six sons were now living, how good it would be for us: how happy we
should be." The young prince went out hunting for little birds every
day, and in the evening he cooked those he caught and brought them,
with water, to his mothers.

Now the demon, because she was a demon and was therefore wiser than
men and women, knew that the seven queens lived in the well, and that
the son of the youngest queen was still alive. She determined to kill
him; so she pretended her eyes hurt her, and began crying, and making
a great to-do. The king asked her, "What is the matter?" "See, king,
see my eyes," she said. "They ache and hurt me so much." "What
medicine will make them well again?" said the king. "If I could only
bathe them with a tigress's milk, they would be well," she answered.

The king called two of his servants and said to them, "Can either of
you get me a tigress's milk? Here are two thousand rupees for
whichever of you brings me the milk." Then he gave them the rupees,
and told them to get it at once.

The servants took the rupees, and said nothing to the king, but they
said to each other, "How can we get a tigress's milk?" And they were
very sad. The