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That night as the Rání lay in her bed she suddenly thought, “Those children are in the flowers,” and she determined to be with her husband when he gathered them, to get them into her own hands some way or other.

The next morning Anárbásá Mahárájá and his wife went to the bél-tree, and as soon as he held out his hand towards the flowers, they dropped into it. “What lovely flowers! What beautiful flowers! Do give them to me,” said Sunkásí Rání. “No,” said the Mahárájá, “I will keep them myself.” Then he carried them to his room and laid them on the table while he shut the door and the venetians. Then he came and sat down before them: he took them in his hand, and looked at them and laid them again on the table; then he took them and smelt them, and they smelt, oh! so sweet. This he did many times. At last he held them to his ears, for the adventure of the bél-fruit had made him wise ( hushyár ), and he heard little tiny voices, saying, “Papa” (Dunkní’s own word), “we want to stay with you; we should like to be with you.” The Mahárájá looked very carefully at the flowers, and at last, in one of them he saw a little splinter of wood like a thorn sticking: he pulled this out, and his own little son stood before him. Then he looked at the other flower, and in that, too, was a little splinter of wood sticking. When he pulled it out his little girl stood there.

The Mahárájá was vexed with his children, and asked them why they were so naughty, and why they liked to live in fruits and flowers instead of staying in the palace or going to school. The children answered, “We go to school sometimes, and then we come back and live in our flowers, and then we return to school, and then we come back to our flower-homes again.” “This is a lie you are telling me,” said their father. “You know quite well you have not been at school at all.” The Mahárání came in to hear what all this talking meant, and when she saw the children she said to Anárbásá Mahárájá, “These are not your children, yours are at school.” “They are my children,” he answered, “and they have never been at school at all, and they are very naughty.” He then sent them away to play, and the Rání returned to her room. But he sat alone in his room, for he was angry and cross. As he sat there one of his chaprásís came to him and said, “Maháráj, you do not know how ill the Mahárání treats your children, or you would not be angry with them. She has killed them several times, and sent them away into the jungle; and after they came out of the bél-fruit she killed them and chopped them into small pieces, and fed the kites and crows with their flesh.” When the Mahárájá heard all this, he said to the chaprásí, “You must have a beautiful little house built for me; you must take care that it is chiefly made of wood; the flooring must be very thin and of wood; and the hollow place under the flooring must be filled with dry wood. Then you must put plenty of flowers inside the house, and plenty outside so as to make it very pretty.”

As soon as the house was ready the Mahárájá went to his wife and asked her if she would go out with him to eat the air. “I should like to show you a new house I have had built for you,” he said. So she went with him and thought her new house lovely. While she was inside looking at the pretty flowers in the rooms, the Mahárájá slipped out, and bolted the door so that she could not escape, and he told his servants to set fire to the wood under the flooring. When the flames began to rise the Rání got very frightened. She rushed to the window and called to the Mahárájá and his servants, who were standing there looking on, to save her. No one said anything to her. “Save me,” she cried, “or I shall be burnt to death.” “If you are burnt, what does it matter?” said the Mahárájá. “You ill-treated my children; you killed them; so, now burn.”