At this she smiled and dried her eyes, but quickly added, "You will let me take these crows with me, will you not? for I love them dearly, and I cannot go away unless they may come too."
"To be sure," he answered. "You may bring all the animals in the jungle with you, if you like, if you will only come."
So he took her home to his father's house, and the old Rajah and Ranee wondered much at this jungle lady, when they saw her rare beauty, her modest, gentle ways and her queenly grace. Then the young Rajah told them how she was a persecuted Princess, and asked their leave to marry her; and because her loving goodness had won all hearts, they gave their consent as joyfully as if she had been daughter of the greatest of Rajahs, and brought with her a splendid dower; and they called her Draupadi Bai.
Draupadi had some beautiful trees planted in front of her palace, in which the crows, her brothers, used to live, and she daily with her own hands boiled a quantity of rice, which she would scatter for them to eat as they flocked around her. Now some time after this, Draupadi Bai had a son, who was called Ramchundra. He was a very good boy, and his mother, Draupadi Bai, used to take him to school every morning, and go and fetch him home in the evening. But one day, when Ramchundra was about fourteen years old, it happened that Draupadi Bai did not go to fetch him home from school as she was wont; and on his return he found her sitting under the trees in front of her palace, stroking the glossy black crows that flocked around her, and weeping.
Then Ramchundra threw down his bundle of books and said to his mother, putting his elbows on her knees, and looking up in her face, "Mammy, dear, tell me why you are now crying, and what it is that makes you so often sad."
"Oh, nothing, nothing," she answered.
"Yes, dear mother," said he, "do tell me. Can I help you? If I can, I will."
Draupadi Bai shook her head. "Alas, no, my son," she said; "you are too young to help me; and as for my grief, I have never told it to any one. I cannot tell it to you now." But Ramchundra continued begging and praying her to tell him, until at last she did; relating to him all her own and his uncles' sad history; and lastly, how they had been changed by a Rakshas into the black crows he saw around him.
Then the boy sprang up and said, "Which way did your brothers take when they met the Rakshas?"
"How can I tell?" she asked.