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So the Indrásan Rájá stayed for a whole year. Then he told the Rájá, the Phúlmati Rání’s father, that he wished to go back to his own kingdom. “All right,” said the Rájá, and he wanted to give him horses, and camels, and elephants. But the Indrásan Rájá and the Phúlmati Rání said they wanted nothing but a tent and a cooly. Well, they set out; but the Indrásan Rájá forgot to put flowers on his ears, and after some days the Indrásan Rájá was very, very tired, so he said, “We will sit down under these big trees and rest awhile. Our baggage will soon be here; it is only a little way behind.” So they sat down, and the Rájá said he felt so tired he must sleep. “Very well,” said the Rání; “lay your head in my lap and sleep.” After a while a shoemaker’s wife came by to get some water from a tank which was close to the spot where the Rájá and Rání were resting. Now, the shoemaker’s wife was very black and ugly, and she had only one eye, and she was exceedingly wicked. The Rání was very thirsty and she said to the woman, “Please give me some water, I am so thirsty.” “If you want any,” said the shoemaker’s wife, “come to the tank and get it yourself.” “But I cannot,” said the Rání, “for the Rájá is sleeping in my lap.” At last the poor Rání got so very, very thirsty, she said she must have some water; so laying the Rájá’s head very gently on the ground she went to the tank. Then the wicked shoemaker’s wife, instead of giving her to drink, gave her a push and sent the beautiful Rání into the water, where she was drowned. The shoemaker’s wife then went back to the Rájá, and, taking his head on her knee, sat still until he woke. When the Rájá woke he was much frightened, and he said, “This is not my wife. My wife was not black, and she had two eyes.” The poor Rájá felt very unhappy. He said, “I am sure something has happened to my wife.” He went to the tank, and he saw flowers floating on the water and he caught them, and as he caught them his own true wife stood before him.

They travelled on till they came to a little house. The shoemaker’s wife went with them. They went into the house and laid themselves down to sleep, and the Rájá laid beside him the flowers he had found floating in the tank. The Rání’s life was in the flowers. As soon as the Rájá and Rání were asleep, the shoemaker’s wife took the flowers, broke them into little bits, and burnt them. The Rání died immediately, for the second time. Then the poor Rájá, feeling very lonely and unhappy, travelled on to his kingdom, and the shoemaker’s wife went after him. God brought the Phúlmati Rání to life a second time, and led her to the Indrásan Rájá’s gardener.

One day as the Indrásan Rájá was going out hunting, he passed by the gardener’s house, and saw a beautiful girl sitting in it. He thought she looked very like his wife, the Phúlmati Rání. So he went home to his father and said, “Father, I should like to be married to the girl who lives in our gardener’s house.” “All right,” said the father; “you can be married at once.” So they were married the next day.

One night the shoemaker’s wife took a ram, killed it, and put some of its blood on the Phúlmati Rání’s mouth while the Rání slept. The next morning she went to the Indrásan Rájá and said, “Whom have you married? You have married a Rakshas. Just see. She has been eating cows, and sheep, and chickens. Just come and see.” The Rájá went, and when he saw the blood on his wife’s mouth he was frightened, and he thought she was really a Rakshas. The shoemaker’s wife said to him, “If you do not cut this woman in pieces, some harm will happen to you.” So the Rájá took a knife and cut his beautiful wife into pieces. He then went away very sorrowful. The Phúlmati Rání’s arms and legs grew into four houses; her chest became a tank, and her head a house in the middle of the tank; her eyes turned into two little doves; and these five houses, the tank and the doves, were transported to the jungle. No one knew this. The little doves lived in the house that stood in the middle of the tank. The other four houses stood round the tank.