Then her mother cried, 'Oh, what a stupid woman I am! The Rajah one day came here seeking you, but I and your father and brothers drove him away, for we did not know you were indeed the lost Ranee.'
As she spoke these words a sound of horses' hoofs was heard in the distance, and the Rajah himself appeared, having learnt the good news of Surya Bai's being alive from her old attendant.
It is impossible to describe the joy of the Rajah at finding his long-lost wife, but it was not greater than Surya Bai's at being restored to her husband.
Then the Rajah turned to the old Milkwoman and said, 'Old woman, you did not tell me true, for it was indeed my wife who was in your hut.'--'Yes, Protector of the poor,' answered the old Milkwoman, 'but it was also my daughter.' Then they told him how Surya Bai was the Milkwoman's child.
At hearing this the Rajah commanded them all to return with him to the Palace. He gave Surya Bai's father a village, and ennobled the family; and he said to Surya Bai's old attendant, 'For the good service you have done, you shall be Palace housekeeper;' and he gave her great riches, adding, 'I can never repay the debt I owe you, nor make you sufficient recompence for having caused you to be unjustly cast into prison.' But she replied, 'Sire, even in your anger you were temperate; if you had caused me to be put to death, as some would have done, none of this good might have come upon you; it is yourself you have to thank.'
The wicked first Ranee was cast, for the rest of her life, into the prison in which the old attendant had been thrown; but Surya Bai lived happily with her husband the rest of her days; and in memory of her adventures, he planted round their Palace a hedge of sunflowers and a grove of mango trees.
