Page:Indian fairy tales (1892).djvu/250

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Indian Fairy Tales

by. When it was brought she bade the old woman step into it and desire to be at home.

The old woman did so, and was at once carried through the air quickly and safely to her hut, where she found her two lodgers safe and sound. "Oh!" she cried, "I thought that both of you would be killed by this time. The royal elephants have got loose and are running about wildly. When I heard this I was anxious about you. So the princess gave me this charmed swing to return in. But come, let us get outside before the elephants arrive and batter down the place."

"Don't believe this," said the vizier's son. "It is a mere hoax. They have been playing tricks with you."

"You will soon have your heart's desire," he whispered aside to the prince. "These things are signs."

Two days of the dark fortnight had elapsed, when the prince and the vizier's son seated themselves in the swing, and wished themselves within the grounds of the palace. In a moment they were there, and there too was the object of their search standing by one of the palace gates, and longing to see the prince quite as much as he was longing to see her.

Oh, what a happy meeting it was!

"At last," said Gulizar, "I have seen my beloved, my husband."

"A thousand thanks to Heaven for bringing me to you," said the prince.

Then the prince and Gulizar betrothed themselves to one another and parted, the one for the hut and the other for the palace, both of them feeling happier than they had ever been before.