He was a very wise jackal, so he went on. "It is sure to come out all right, and I will help you to find your sister."
So they went, right away, into the jungle, and pretty soon the jackal's sharp eyes saw the first ruby, wrapped in its yellow silk, lying on the grass. And soon after that they found another, and then another, and by and by they came out of the jungle.
"I shall have to leave you here," said the jackal. "There are towns out here in the open country, and where there are towns there are men, and men do not like jackals."
"But what shall I do?" asked Dehra.
"I will help you to make yourself look like an old woman," replied the jackal. "You will have to do something of the kind or some one will carry you off and you will never find your sister."
Then the jackal showed Dehra a plant which she rubbed on her face and made it an ugly brown, and then he showed her how to make her face look wrinkled. Then he went to a little house not far away and stole a coarse red saree which an old woman had hung on a bush to dry after washing it.
"Where did you get this?" asked Dehra, as the jackal brought it to her in his mouth; and the jackal told her it was growing on a bush. So Dehra put it on and went slowly along the road like an old woman.
Every little while she found one of Nala's rubies, and then they would be a long way apart, but at last she came to the city where Nala was, and found the last ruby by the gate of the Rajah's palace. Then she sat down not very far away and wondered how she could get inside the palace.
As night came on, the wife of a laboring man took pity on the poor old woman, as she supposed Dehra to be, and let her sleep in a hut in her garden. Now this garden was very near the palace grounds, in which was a marble bathing-tank covered with red lotus flowers.