The Rajah could not guess what the meaning of this was, and thought they merely wished to pick a quarrel with him: but not much caring whether Guzra Bai came or not, he sent for her as was desired. When she arrived, her daughter Draupadi Bai, and her hundred sons, with Draupadi Bai’s husband and the young Ramchundra, went out to the gate to meet her, and conducted her into the palace with all honor. Then, standing around her, they turned to the Rajah her husband, and related to him the story of their lives; how that they were his children, and Guzra Bai their mother; how she had been cruelly calumniated by the twelve wicked Ranees, and they in constant peril of their lives; but having miraculously escaped many terrible dangers, still lived to pay him duteous service and to cheer and support his old age.
At this news the whole company was very much astonished. The Rajah, overjoyed, embraced his wife Guzra Bai, and it was agreed that she and their hundred sons should return with him to his own land, which accordingly was done. Ramchundra lived very happily with his father and mother to the day of their death, when he ascended the throne, and became a very popular Rajah; and the twelve wicked old Ranees, who had conspired against Guzra Bai and her children, were, by order of the Rajah, burnt to death. Thus truth triumphed in the end; but so unequally is human justice meted out that the old nurse, who worked their evil will, and was in fact the most guilty wretch of all, is said to have lived unpunished, to have died in the bosom of her family, and to have had as big a funeral pile as any virtuous Hindoo.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] Solanum molengena—the egg-shaped fruit of which is a favorite vegetable all over India.
[42] Flower Girl.
[43] “It must have been a kind of telegraph to go so quick,” my Narrator said.
[44] Kingdom.
[45] A species of large rat.
[46] Washerman.
[47] Doubtless after the beautiful Princess Draupadi, daughter of the Rajah of Panchala, and a famous character in the great Hindoo epic, the “Maha Bharata.”