Indian Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs (pride and prejudice read txt) 📗

her healing blood all over the wound, and Majnun woke up and said, “What a delightful sleep I have had! Why, I feel as if I had slept for years!” Then he got up and saw the Raja’s dead body by Laili’s horse.

“What’s that?” said Majnun.

“That is the wicked Raja who killed you to seize me, just as I said he would.”

“Who killed him?” asked Majnun.

“I did,” answered Laili, “and it was I who brought you to life.”

“Do bring the poor man to life if you know how to do so,” said Majnun.

“No,” said Laili, “for he is a wicked man, and will try to do you harm.” But Majnun asked her for such a long time, and so earnestly to bring the wicked Raja to life, that at least she said, “Jump up on the horse, then, and go far away with the groom.”

“What will you do,” said Majnun, “if I leave you? I cannot leave you.”

“I will take care of myself,” said Laili; “but this man is so wicked, he may kill you again if you are near him.” So Majnun got up on the horse, and he and the groom went a long way off and waited for Laili. Then she set the wicked Raja’s head straight on his shoulders, and she squeezed the wound in her finger till a little blood-medicine came out of it. Then she smeared this over the place where her knife had passed, and just as she saw the Raja opening his eyes, she began to run, and she ran, and ran so fast, that she outran the Raja, who tried to catch her; and she sprang up on the horse behind her husband, and they rode so fast, so fast, till they reached King Dantal’s palace.

There Prince Majnun told everything to his father, who was horrified and angry. “How lucky for you that you have such a wife,” he said. “Why did you not do what she told you? But for her, you would be now dead.” Then he made a great feast out of gratitude for his son’s safety, and gave many, many rupees to the fakirs. And he made so much of Laili. He loved her dearly; he could not do enough for her. Then he built a splendid palace for her and his son, with a great deal of ground about it, and lovely gardens, and gave them great wealth, and heaps of servants to wait on them. But he would not allow any but their servants to enter their gardens and palace, and he would not allow Majnun to go out of them, nor Laili; “for,” said King Dantal, “Laili is so beautiful, that perhaps someone may kill my son to take her away.”

The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal

Once upon a time, a tiger was caught in a trap. He tried in vain to get out through the bars, and rolled and bit with rage and grief when he failed.

By chance a poor Brahman came by. “Let me out of this cage, oh pious one!” cried the tiger.

“Nay, my friend,” replied the Brahman mildly, “you would probably eat me if I did.”

“Not at all!” swore the tiger with many oaths; “on the contrary, I should be forever grateful, and serve you as a slave!”

Now when the tiger sobbed and sighed and wept and swore, the pious Brahman’s heart softened, and at last he consented to open the door of the cage. Out popped the tiger, and, seizing the poor man, cried, “What a fool you are! What is to prevent my eating you now, for after being cooped up so long I am just terribly hungry!”

In vain the Brahman pleaded for his life; the most he could gain was a promise to abide by the decision of the first three things he chose to question as to the justice of the tiger’s action.

So the Brahman first asked a pipal tree what it thought of the matter, but the pipal tree replied coldly, “What have you to complain about? Don’t I give shade and shelter to everyone who passes by, and don’t they in return tear down my branches to feed their cattle? Don’t whimper⁠—be a man!”

Then the Brahman, sad at heart, went further afield till he saw a buffalo turning a well-wheel; but he fared no better from it, for it answered, “You are a fool to expect gratitude! Look at me! Whilst I gave milk they fed me on cottonseed and oil-cake, but now I am dry they yoke me here, and give me refuse as fodder!”

The Brahman, still more sad, asked the road to give him its opinion.

“My dear sir,” said the road, “how foolish you are to expect anything else! Here am I, useful to everybody, yet all, rich and poor, great and small, trample on me as they go past, giving me nothing but the ashes of their pipes and the husks of their grain!”

On this the Brahman turned back sorrowfully, and on the way he met a jackal, who called out, “Why, what’s the matter, Mr. Brahman? You look as miserable as a fish out of water!”

The Brahman told him all that had occurred. “How very confusing!” said the jackal, when the recital was ended; “would you mind telling me over again, for everything has got so mixed up?”

The Brahman told it all over again, but the jackal shook his head in a distracted sort of way, and still could not understand.

“It’s very odd,” said he, sadly, “but it all seems to go in at one ear and out at the other! I will go to the place where it all happened, and then perhaps I shall be able to give a judgment.”

So they returned to the cage, by which the tiger was waiting for the Brahman, and sharpening his teeth and claws.

“You’ve been away a long time!” growled the savage beast, “but now let us begin our dinner.”

“Our dinner!” thought the wretched Brahman, as his knees