Deesa agreed to this, and after supper invited his brother to sit with him on the balcony. Then Matni went up on the roof of the palace and threw down some powder on the younger Prince's head. Just as soon as she did this, the Prince was changed into a little fish, and his brother picked him up and threw him into the river.
All this was done so suddenly that the Prince hardly knew what had happened to him. Over and over he turned before he struck the water, but when it had closed over him he found that he had been changed into a fish and could swim very nicely underneath the water.
He seemed to know, too, that Matni had enchanted him, and he wanted to get out of her way; so he swam on and on until at the end of two days he was outside of his father's kingdom.
Then one day he was caught in a net by some fishermen and taken to the palace of the king of that country to be served up for dinner. He was not very big, and one of the servants thought it would be much nicer to have him in a bowl than to cook him.
So the servant begged for the little fish. "I will take it to the Queen's room," she said. "She has no children and is sometimes very dull. This little fish may amuse her."
The Queen was very much pleased with the pretty little fish and became very fond of him. When he grew to be too large for the bowl, she had another one prepared for him, and fed him boiled rice twice every day. "He is such a dear," she said, "that he shall be called Athon-Rajah, the Fish Prince."
After awhile the Fish Prince grew so big that the Queen had a tank made for him through which the clear water of the river flowed in and out.
Then one day the Queen feared that the Fish Prince was not comfortable in his tank and would prefer to be in the beautiful shining river which flowed past her windows. So she said to him one day, "Are you quite happy here, Athon-Rajah?"