Page:Old Deccan Days.djvu/99

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RAMA AND LUXMAN.
59

statue, in hopes that the baby would some day touch it as the owl had foretold.

But for three months they watched in vain. At last, one day when the child was a year old, and was trying to walk, it chanced to be close to the statue, and tottering on its unsteady feet, stretched out its tiny hands and caught hold of the foot of the stone. The Wuzeer instantly came back to life, and stooping down seized in his arms the little baby who had rescued him, and kissed it. It is impossible to describe the delight of Rama Rajah and his wife at regaining their long-lost friend. The old Rajah and Ranee rejoiced also, with the Wuzeer (Luxman Wuzeer's father), and his mother.

Then Chandra Rajah said to the Wuzeer, 'Here is my boy happy with his wife and child, while your son has neither; go fetch him a wife, and we will have a right merry wedding.' So the Wuzeer fetched for his son a kind and beautiful wife, and Chandra Rajah and Rama Rajah caused the wedding of Luxman to be grander than that of any great Rajah before or since, even as if he had been a son of the royal house, and they all lived very happy ever after, as all good fathers, and mothers, and husbands, and wives, and children do.