vants returned to the
fakir, and told him, "The Raja says you must come to-morrow, for he
cannot see you now, as he has bathed and breakfasted." God went away,
and the next day he again came, after all the fakirs and poor people
had received their gold and the Raja had gone into his palace. So the
Raja told his servants, "Bid the fakir come to-morrow. He has again
come too late for me to see him now."

On the third day God was once more too late, for the Raja had gone
into his palace. The Raja was vexed with him for being a third time
too late, and said to his servants, "What sort of a fakir is this that
he always comes too late? Go and ask him what he wants." So the
servants went to the fakir and said, "Raja Harichand says, 'What do
you want from him?'" "I want no rupees," answered God, "nor anything
else; but I want him to give me his wife." The servants told this to
the Raja, and it made him very angry. He went to his wife, the Rani
Bahan, and said to her, "There is a fakir at the gate who asks me to
give you to him! As if I should ever do such a thing! Fancy my giving
him my wife!"

The Rani was very wise and clever, for she had a book, which she read
continually, called the kop shastra; and this book told her
everything. So she knew that the fakir at the gate was no fakir, but
God himself. (In old days about two people in a thousand, though not
more, could read this book; now-a-days hardly any one can read it, for
it is far too difficult.) So the Rani said to the Raja, "Go to this
fakir, and say to him, 'You shall have my wife.' You need not really
give me to him; only give me to him in your thoughts." "I will do no
such thing," said the Raja in a rage; and in spite of all her
entreaties, he would not say to the fakir, "I will give you my wife."
He ordered his servants to beat the fakir, and send him away; and so
they did.

God returned to his place, and called to him two angels. "Take the
form of men," he said to them, "and go to Raja Harichand. Say to him,
'God has sent us to you. He says, Which will you have--a twelve years'
famine throughout your land during which no rain will fall? or a great
rain for twelve hours?'"

The angels came to the Raja and said as God had bidden them. The Raja
thought for a long while which he should choose. "If a great rain
pours down for twelve hours," he said to himself, "my whole country
will be washed away. But I have a great quantity of gold. I have
enough to send to othe