Raja's horses were tied up and among them was a mare named
Piyari and she went up to the mare and said "You have eaten our salt
for a long time, will you now requite me?" And Piyari said "Certainly
I will!". Then the princess asked "If I mount you, will you jump
over all these horses and this wall and escape?" And the mare said
"Yes, but you will have to hold on very tight." The princess said
"That is my look-out: it is settled that on the day I want you you
will jump over the wall and escape." Then she wrote a letter to Kuwar
and gave it to her maid-servant to deliver into Kuwar's own hands,
without letting anyone know: and in the letter she fixed a day for
their elopement and told Kuwar to wait for her by a certain tree. So
on the day fixed after everyone was asleep Kuwar went to the tree and
almost at once the princess came to him riding on Piyari; he asked
her how she had escaped and whether she had been seen and she told
him how the mare had jumped over the wall without anyone knowing;
then they both mounted Piyari and drove her like the wind and in one
night they passed through the territory of two or three Rajas and in
the morning were in a far country.

Then they dismounted to cook their rice, and went to the house of an
old woman to ask for a light with which to light their fire. Now this
old woman had seven sons and they were all robbers and murderers;
and six of them had killed travellers and carried off their wives
and married them. When Kuwar and the princess came asking for a
light the seven sons were away hunting and when the old woman saw
the princess she resolved to marry her to her youngest son, and made
a plan to delay them; so she asked them to cook their rice at her
house and offered them cooking pots and water pots and firewood and
everything necessary; they did not know that she meant to kill Kuwar
and unsuspiciously accepted her offer. When they had finished cooking
Kuwar asked the old woman whether she lived alone and she told him
that she was a widow but had seven sons and they were all away on a
trading expedition. The old woman kept on looking out to see if her
sons were returning, and she had made an arrangement with them that if
she ever wanted them she would set fire to a small hut and they would
come home at once when they saw the smoke rising. But before her sons
came back Kuwar and the princess finished their meal and paid the old
woman and mounted Piyari and gallopped off. Then the ol