XIII
A TRUE FRIEND
A CERTAIN prince once lived in very intimate friendship with a goat-herd. They were always together, and the prince promised his friend that on ascending the throne he would make him prime minister. In course of time the reigning king died, and was succeeded by his son, who in the intoxication of rank and power quite forgot his goat-herd friend. The latter, however, with the intention of calling on him, one day presented himself at the gate of the palace, but he was roughly driven away. The next morning it so befell that the king got up from bed with his whole body from top to toe pierced with needles, and was subject to intense suffering. He could not stand, sit, or lie down without filling the house with groans; and the whole palace was rent with misery out of sympathy for him. The queen's affliction in particular was so great that she passed her days only in heart-rending sighs and sobs.
One day, when she went to bathe in the river that flowed by the palace, she was met by a girl of unrivalled beauty, who petitioned to be kept as a slave and rewarded with the queen's diamond bracelets. The girl's request being granted, she followed her mistress. And when the latter, leaving her clothes on the bank, immersed her head in the water, the former, by some charm, assumed her shape, turning her into an ugly hag. They then returned to the palace, where the wicked girl passed as the queen. Her manners, however, were quite unlike those of the latter. She showed a very cross temper, and cast invectives on those who approached
