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The Bel-Princess
by
As soon as he had laid himself down in the verandah, the parrot and the mainá perched near him; and the parrot told the mainá how the prince had heard of the Bél-Princess; and all about his long journey in search of her, and how he found the bél-fruit, and how he was turned to stone. Then he stopped chattering, and the birds said nothing more to each other that night.
In the morning the King’s son rode home, and was as silent and grave as he had been before. He told his wife his head ached when she asked him whether he was ill.
That night he again slept in the verandah of the strange palace, and heard a little more of his story from the birds.
The next day he was still silent and grave, and his wife was very uneasy. “I am sure the Bél-Princess is alive,” she said to herself, “and that he goes every night to see her.” Then she asked him, “Why do you go out every evening? Why do you not stay at home?” “I am not well,” he answered, “so I go to my mother’s house” (the prince had a little house of his own in his father’s compound). “I will not sleep at home again till I am well.”
That night he lay down to sleep again in the verandah of the great empty palace, and heard the parrot tell the mainá all that happened to the prince up to the time that he fell asleep in his father’s garden with the beautiful Bél-Princess sitting beside him.
On the fifth night the prince lay down to sleep again in the verandah of the palace on the great plain, and watched eagerly for the little birds to begin their talk. This night the parrot told how the wicked woman had come and taken the Bél-Princess’s clothes, and thrown her down the well; how the princess became a lotus-flower which the wicked wife broke to bits; how the bits of the lotus-flower turned into a bél-fruit which she threw away; how out of the fruit came a tiny girl-baby that the gardener adopted; how the wicked woman persuaded the prince to have this girl killed when she was seven years old; how he and the mainá had once been this girl’s eyes; how the tank was once her heart, and how her body had changed into this palace and garden, while her head became the dome on the top of the palace.
Then the mainá asked the parrot where the Bél-Princess was. “Cannot she be found?” said the mainá. “Yes,” said the parrot, “she can be found; but the King’s youngest son alone can find her, and he is so foolish! He believes that his ugly, wicked wife is the beautiful Bél-Princess!” “And where is the princess?” asked the mainá. “She is here,” said the parrot. “If the prince would come one day and go through all the rooms of this palace till he came to the centre room, he would see a trap-door in the middle of that room. If he lifted the trap-door he would see a staircase which leads to an underground palace, and in this palace is the Bél-princess.” “And can no one but the prince lift the trap-door?” asked the mainá. “No one,” answered the parrot. “It is God’s order that only the King’s youngest son can lift the trap-door and find the Bél-Princess.”
The next day the young prince went through all the rooms of the palace, instead of going home. When he came to the centre room, he looked for the trap-door, and when he had lifted it he saw the staircase. He went down it, and found himself in the under-ground palace, which was far more beautiful than the one above-ground. It was full of servants; and in one room a grand dinner was standing ready. In another room he saw a gold bed, all covered with pearls and diamonds, and on the bed lay the Bél-Princess.