The woman learnt it, and returned to the prince.

"Well, mother, what did the princess say?" he asked.

"Nothing, [325] but only sent you this stanza," replied she; and she repeated it. The prince took it in, and dismissed her.

The prince understood exactly what was meant. He found a beautiful and soft-handed page lad, and prepared him. He bribed the keeper of a state elephant, and having trained the elephant to be impassive, he bided his time. Then, one fast-day of the dark fortnight, just after the middle watch, rain fell from a thick black cloud. "This is the day the princess meant," thought he; he mounted the elephant, and placed the lad of the soft hands on its back, and set out. Opposite the palace he fastened the elephant to the great wall of an open courtyard, and stood before a window getting drenched.

Now the king watched his daughter, and let her rest nowhere but upon a little bed, in his presence. She thought to herself, "To-day the prince will come!" and lay down without going to sleep.

"Father," said she, "I want to bathe."

"Come along, my daughter," said the king. Holding her hands, he led her to the window; he lifted her, and placed her on a lotus ornament outside it, holding her by one hand. As she bathed herself, she held out a

hand to the prince. He loosed off the bangles from her arm, and fastened them on the arm of his page boy; then he lifted the lad, and placed him upon the lotus beside the princess. [326] She took his hand, and placed it in her father's, who took it, and let go his daughter's hand. Then she loosed the ornaments from her other arm, and fastened them on the other hand of the lad, which she placed in her father's, and went away with the prince. The king thought the lad to be his own daughter; and when the bathing was over, he put him to sleep in the royal bedchamber, shut to the door, and set his seal on it; then setting a guard, he retired to his own chamber, and lay down to rest.

When the daylight came, he opened the door, and there he saw this lad. "What's this?" cried he. The lad told how she was fled along with the prince. The king was cast down. "Not even if one goes along and holds hands," thought the king, "can one guard a woman. Thus women it is impossible to guard;" and he uttered these other two stanzas:--

"Though soft of speech, like rivers hard to fill,
Insatiate, nought can satisfy their will:
Down, down they sink: a man should flee afar
From women, when he knows what kind they are.
Whomso they serve for gold or for desire,
They burn him up like fuel in the fire ."