ree that grew in it. She showed
them to the gardener, and asked if he had seen them before. "Never,"
said the man. "On this tree there have never been either flowers or
fruit till now." "Gather the flowers for me," said the Rani, "I do so
wish to have them." The gardener said to her, "Wait till the buds are
fully blown and then I will gather them for you." At the end of three
or four days the Rani Sunkasi asked if the buds had grown into large
flowers, and the gardener said, "Yes, to-day I will gather them for
you." He got a long, long bamboo cane, and tied a piece of wood
cross-ways on one of its ends so as to make a sort of hook wherewith
to catch hold of and break off the flowers. He tried and tried to get
them, but all in vain. Then he made all the servants try. It was of no
use, no one could make the hook touch the flowers. They always bent
themselves just out of its reach. Then Sunkasi Rani tried, but with no
better success. She told the Maharaja, who said, "I will try to-morrow
to gather these wonderful flowers."

That night as the Rani lay in her bed she suddenly thought, "Those
children are in the flowers," and she determined to be with her
husband when he gathered them, to get them into her own hands some way
or other.

The next morning Anarbasa Maharaja and his wife went to the bel-tree,
and as soon as he held out his hand towards the flowers, they dropped
into it. "What lovely flowers! What beautiful flowers! Do give them to
me," said Sunkasi Rani. "No," said the Maharaja, "I will keep them
myself." Then he carried them to his room and laid them on the table
while he shut the door and the venetians. Then he came and sat down
before them: he took them in his hand, and looked at them and laid
them again on the table; then he took them and smelt them, and they
smelt, oh! so sweet. This he did many times. At last he held them to
his ears, for the adventure of the bel-fruit had made him wise
(_hushyar_), and he heard little tiny voices, saying, "Papa" (Dunkni's
own word), "we want to stay with you; we should like to be with you."
The Maharaja looked very carefully at the flowers, and at last, in one
of them he saw a little splinter of wood like a thorn sticking: he
pulled this out, and his own little son stood before him. Then he
looked at the other flower, and in that, too, was a little splinter of
wood sticking. When he pulled it out his little girl stood there.

The Maharaja was vexed with his children, and