Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Suniti Devi).djvu/19

big room most gorgeously furnished. Inside these was a golden bed and, lo! on it lay a body. The young princess stood near the door, motionless. Could it be a dead body? Had some one come and killed the person and left the body here? Should she run away? Perhaps a giant might come to whom the house belonged. Such thoughts troubled her for some time. At last she boldly went near the bed, and found a most handsome young man's body lying on it, covered over with thousands of needles. Her loving little heart ached to see that sight and she wept bitterly over it.

"Who could have been so cruel?" she thought. "I will stay here and take the needles out. Dead though he be, his body must not be hurt." And she sat there and began to take the needles out of the body, one by one.

Fourteen days had passed, thousands of needles had been taken out of the body, only those in the two eyes were left; and the princess felt happy to think that she would finish taking out the needles that day, when she suddenly saw a woman's figure appearing at the door. The princess walked to the door and found it was one of her maid-servants. This servant had got frightened after the princess had escaped, lest the Maharajah should punish her for neglect of duty. So she also had left the kingdom the very day of the