m. The two brothers
were inveterate gamblers and spent their time playing cards with
each other; for a long time fortune was equal, but one day it turned
against the elder brother and he lost and lost until his money and his
jewellery, his horses and his elephants and every thing that he had,
had been won by his younger brother. Then in desperation he staked
his share in the kingdom and that too he lost.

Then the younger brother sent drummers through the city to proclaim
that the whole kingdom was his; the shame of this was more than the
elder prince could bear, so he resolved to quit the country and he
told his wife of his intention and bade her stay behind. But his
faithful wife refused to be parted from him; she vowed that he had
married her not for one day nor for two but for good and all, and
that where he went, there she would go, and whatever troubles he met,
she would share. So he allowed her to come with him and the two set
off to foreign parts. After sometime their path led them through an
extensive jungle and after travelling through it for two days they
at last lost their way completely; their food gave out, they were
faint with starvation and torn with briars.

The prince urged his wife to return but she would not hear of it, so
they pushed on, supporting life on jungle fruits; sometimes the prince
would go far ahead, for his faithful wife could only travel slowly,
and then he would return and wait for her; at last he got tired of
leading her on and made up his mind to abandon her. At night they lay
down at the foot of a tree and the prince thought "If wild animals
would come and eat us it would be the best that could happen. I cannot
bear to see my wife suffer any more; although her flesh is torn with
thorns, she will not leave me. I will leave her here; may wild beasts
kill both her and me, but I cannot see her die before my eyes." So
thinking he got up quietly and went off as quickly as he could.

When the princess woke and found that she had been abandoned, she began
to weep and wept from dawn to noon without ceasing; at noon a being,
in the guise of an old woman appeared and asked her why she wept,
and comforted her and promised to lead her out of the wood and told
her that Chando had had compassion on her and would allow her to find
her husband again if they both lived.

So saying the old woman led the princess from the forest and showed
her the way to a great city where a Raja lived. The princes