lashes gave it such a tender, softened expression she could hardly believe that he was dead. He was, in truth, very beautiful; and watching him she said to herself, 'Alas, what a noble being is here lost to the world—what an earth's joy is extinguished! Was it for this that I was cold, and proud, and stern—to break the cup of my own happiness, and to be the death of such as you? Must you now never learn that you won your wife? Must you never hear her ask your pardon for the past, nor know her cruel punishment? Ah, if you had but lived, how dearly I would have loved you! O my husband, my husband!' And sinking down on the ground, she buried her face in her hands, and cried bitterly.
While she was sitting thus, night closed over the jungle, and brought with it wild beasts that had left their dens and lairs to roam about in search of prey, as the heat of the day was over. Tigers, lions, elephants, and bisons, all came by turns crushing through the underwood which surrounded the place where the palkees were, but they did no harm to Panch-Phul Ranee; for she was so fair that not even the cruel beasts of the forest would injure her. At last about four o'clock in the morning all the wild animals had gone except two little jackals, who had been very busy watching the rest, and picking the bones left by the tigers. Tired with running about, they lay down to rest close to the palkees. Then one little jackal said to the other, who was her husband, 'Do tell me a little story.'—'Dear me!' he exclaimed, 'what people you women are for stories! Well, look just in front of you; do you see those two?'—'Yes,' she answered; 'what of them?'—'That woman you see sitting on the ground,' he said, 'is the Panch-Phul Ranee.'—'And what son of a Rajah is the man in the palkee?' asked she.—'That,' he replied, 'is a very sorrowful son.' His father was so unkind to him that he left his own home, and went to live in another country very far from this; and there he dreamed about the Panch-Phul Ranee, and came to our land in order to marry her, but he was killed in jumping the seventh hedge of spears, and so all he gained was to die for her sake.'
'That is very sad,' said the first little jackal; 'but could he never by any chance come to life again?'—'Yes,' answered the other; ' may be he could, if only some one knew how to apply the proper remedies.'—'What are the proper remedies, and how could he be cured? asked the lady jackal. (Now all this conversation had been heard by Panch-Phul Ranee, and when this question was asked, she listened very eagerly and attentively for the answer.)
