"I don't know what a middle mango is; but I know that I shall die if I don't get one."

"All right, we will get you one; don't trouble about it."

So the king consoled her, and went away. He took his seat upon the royal divan, and sent for his courtiers. [396] "My queen has a great craving for a middle mango. What is to be done?" said he.

Some one told him, "A middle mango is one which grows between two others. Send to your park, and find a mango growing between two others; pluck its fruit and let us give it to the queen." So the king sent men to do after this manner.

But Sakka by his power made all the fruit disappear, as though it had been eaten. The men who came for the mangoes searched the whole park through, and not a mango could they find; so back they went to the king, and told him that mangoes there were none.

"Who is it eats the mangoes?" asked the king.

"The ascetics, my lord."

"Give the ascetics a drubbing, and bundle them out of the park!" he commanded. The people heard and obeyed: Sakka's wish was fulfilled. The queen lay on and on, longing for the mango.

The king could not think what to do. He gathered his courtiers and his brahmins, and asked them, "Do you know what a middle mango is?"

Said the brahmins: "My lord, a middle mango is the portion of the gods. It grows in Himalaya, in the Golden Cave. So we have heard by immemorial tradition."

"Well, who can go and get it?"

"A human being cannot go; we must send a young parrot."

At that time there was a fine young parrot in the king's family, as big as the nave of the wheel in the princes' carriage, strong, clever, and full of sharp devices. This parrot the king sent for, and thus addressed him,

"Dear parrot, I have done a great deal for you: you live in a golden cage; you have sweet grain to eat on a golden dish; you have sugared water to drink. There's something I want you to do for me,"

"Speak on, my lord," said the parrot.

"Son, my queen has a craving for a middle mango; this mango grows in Himalaya, in the Golden Mountain; it is the gods' portion, [397] no human being can go thither. You must bring the fruit back from thence."

"Very good, my king, I will," said the parrot. Then the king gave him sweetened grain to eat, on a golden plate, and sugar-water to drink; and anointed him beneath the wings with oil an hundred times refined; then he took him in both hands, and standing at a window, let him fly away.

The parrot, on the king's errand, flew along in the air, beyond the ways of men, till he came to some parrots which dwelt in the first hill-region of Himalaya. "Where is the middle mango?" he asked them; "tell me the place."