“I don’t know how long I lay there, but when I came to myself, I found the Eagles must have come back, and thought me dead, and gone away, for the diamond ring was on my little finger; a great many people were watching over me, and amongst them was a Rajah, who asked me to go home with him and be his wife, and he brought me to this place, and I was his Ranee.
“But his other wife, the first Ranee, hated me (for she was jealous), and desired to kill me; and one day she accomplished her purpose by pushing me into the tank, for I was young and foolish, and disregarded the warnings of my faithful old attendant, who begged me not to go near the place. Ah! if I had only listened to her words I might have been happy still.”
At these words the old attendant, who had been sitting in the back ground, rushed forward and kissed Surya Bai’s feet, crying, “Ah, my lady! my lady! have I found you at last!” and, without staying to hear more, she ran back to the palace to tell the Rajah the glad news.
Then Surya Bai told her parents how she had not wholly died in the tank, but became a sunflower; and how the first Ranee, seeing how fond the Rajah was of the plant, had caused it to be thrown away; and then how she had risen from the ashes of the sunflower, in the form of a mango tree; and how when the tree blossomed all her spirit went into the little mango flower, and she ended by saying: “And when the flower became fruit, I know not by what irresistible impulse I was induced to throw myself into your milk can. Mother, it was my destiny, and as soon as you took me into your house, I began to recover my human form.”
“Why, then,” asked her brothers and sisters, “why do you not tell the Rajah that you are living, and that you are the Ranee Surya Bai?”
“Alas,” she answered, “I could not do that. Who knows but that he may be influenced by the first Ranee, and also desire my death. Let me rather be poor like you, but safe from danger.”
Then her mother cried, “Oh, what a stupid woman I am! The Rajah one day came seeking you here, but I and your father and brothers drove him away, for we did not know you were indeed the lost Ranee.”
As she spoke these words a sound of horses’ hoofs was heard in the distance, and the Rajah himself appeared, having heard the good news of Surya Bai’s being alive from her old attendant.
It is impossible to tell the joy of the Rajah at finding his long-lost wife, but it was not greater than Surya Bai’s at being restored to her husband.
Then the Rajah turned to the old Milkwoman and said, “Old woman, you did not tell me true, for it was indeed my wife who was in your hut.” “Yes, Protector of the Poor,” answered the old Milkwoman, “but it was also my daughter.” Then they told him how Surya Bai was the Milkwoman’s child.