There was
nothing she wished for he did not give her, only he would not let her
try to get home to her husband, which she wished more than all.
When she asked him he would say: "No, I will not let you go. If your
husband comes here and fetches you, it is well; but I will not allow
you to wander in search of him through the land alone."
And so she was obliged to stay where she was.
All this time the poor Muchie Rajah was hunting in every part of the
country for his wife, but he could learn no tidings of her. For
grief and sorrow at losing her he had gone almost distracted, and did
nothing but wander from place to place, crying, "She is gone! she is
gone!" Then, when he had long inquired without avail of all the people
in her native village about her, he one day met a bangle-seller and
said to him, "Whence do you come?" The bangle-seller answered, "I have
just been selling bangles to some people who live in a Cobra's hole
in the river-bank." "People! What people?" asked the Rajah. "Why,"
answered the bangle-seller, "a woman and a child; the child is the
most beautiful I ever saw. He is about three years old, and of course,
running about, is always breaking his bangles and his mother buys him
new ones every day.
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