ghbours.
As it was hot weather the farmer had been sleeping on the flat roof of
his house, but was awakened by the sound of weeping. He jumped up and
ran downstairs as fast as he could, and into the forest towards the
place the sound came from, and there he found the palanquin.

'Oh, poor soul that weeps,' cried the farmer, standing a little way
off, 'who are you?' At this salutation from a stranger the queen grew
silent, dreading she knew not what.

[Illustration: THE FARMER FINDS THE QUEEN WEEPING BY THE PALANQUIN]

'Oh, you that weep,' repeated the farmer, 'fear not to speak to me,
for you are to me as a daughter. Tell me, who are you?'

His voice was so kind that the queen gathered up her courage and
spoke. And when she had told her story, the farmer called his wife,
who led her to their house, and gave her food to eat, and a bed to lie
on. And in the farm, a few days later, a little prince was born, and
by his mother's wish named Ameer Ali.

Years passed without a sign from the king. His wife might have been
dead for all he seemed to care, though the queen still lived with the
farmer, and the little prince had by this time grown up into a strong,
handsome, and healthy youth. Out in the forest they seemed far from
the world; very few ever came near them, and the prince was
continually begging his mother and the farmer to be allowed to go away
and seek adventures and to make his own living. But she and the wise
farmer always counselled him to wait, until, at last, when he was
eighteen years of age, they had not the heart to forbid him any
longer. So he started off one early morning, with a sword by his side,
a big brass pot to hold water, a few pieces of silver, and a galail[2]
or two-stringed bow in his hand, with which to shoot birds as he
travelled.

Many a weary mile he tramped day after day, until, one morning, he saw
before him just such a forest as that in which he had been born and
bred, and he stepped joyfully into it, like one who goes to meet an
old friend. Presently, as he made his way through a thicket, he saw a
pigeon which he thought would make a good dinner, so he fired a pellet
at it from his galail, but missed the pigeon which fluttered away with
a startled clatter. At the same instant he heard a great clamour from
beyond the thicket, and, on reaching the spot, he found an ugly old
woman streaming wet and crying loudly as she lifted from her head an
earthen vessel with a hole in it from whi