eed in
and in a few years more he had taken all their rice lands too. Then
his master was very miserable but he saw that it was useless to make
any complaint and the master became so poor that he had to work as
a servant to Kora. At last the miser called the heads of the village
together and wept before them, and they had pity on him and interceded
for him; but Kora said "It is God who has punished him and not I; he
made poor men work for nothing for so long and now he has to suffer;"
but they asked him to be merciful and give him some land, and he agreed
and said "Cut off his little finger and I will let him off his bargain;
and call all the servants whom he has defrauded and I will pay them"
but the miser would not have his finger cut off; then Kora said "Let
him keep his finger and I will give him back half his land." The miser
agreed to this and promised to treat his servants well in future,
and in order to lessen his shame he married his daughter to Kora;
and he had to admit that it was by his own folly that this trouble
had befallen him.

XVII. Kuwar and the Raja's Daughter.

There was once a rich merchant who lived in a Raja's city; and the
Raja founded a school in order that his own children might have some
education, and the boys and the girls of the town used to go to the
school as well as the Raja's sons and daughters and among them the
rich merchant's son, whose name Was Kuwar. In the course of time the
children all learned to read and write. In the evenings all the boys
used to mount their horses and go for a ride.

Now it happened that Kuwar and the Raja's daughter fell in love with
each other and she wrote him a letter saying that if he did not marry
her she would forcibly install herself in his house. He wrote back
and begged her not to come to his house as this would be the ruin of
his family; but he said that he would willingly run away with her to
a distant country, and spend his whole life with her, if she would
overlook the fact that they were of different castes; and if she
agreed to this they must settle to what country to go. Somehow news
of their intention got about, and the Raja was told that his daughter
was in love with the merchant's son. Then the Raja gave orders that
his daughter was not to be allowed to go outside the palace, and the
merchant spoke severely to Kuwar and neither of them was allowed to
go to the school any more. But one day the princess went to the place
where the