Kora said “It is God who has punished him and not I; he made poor men work for nothing for so long and now he has to suffer;” but they asked him to be merciful and give him some land, and he agreed and said “Cut off his little finger and I will let him off his bargain; and call all the servants whom he has defrauded and I will pay them” but the miser would not have his finger cut off; then Kora said “Let him keep his finger and I will give him back half his land.”  The miser agreed to this and promised to treat his servants well in future, and in order to lessen his shame he married his daughter to Kora; and he had to admit that it was by his own folly that this trouble had befallen him.

XVII.  Kuwar and the Rajah’s Daughter.

There was once a rich merchant who lived in a Raja’s city; and the Raja founded a school in order that his own children might have some education, and the boys and the girls of the town used to go to the school as well as the Raja’s sons and daughters and among them the rich merchant’s son, whose name Was Kuwar.  In the course of time the children all learned to read and write.  In the evenings all the boys used to mount their horses and go for a ride.

Now it happened that Kuwar and the Raja’s daughter fell in love with each other and she wrote him a letter saying that if he did not marry her she would forcibly install herself in his house.  He wrote back and begged her not to come to his house as this would be the ruin of his family; but he said that he would willingly run away with her to a distant country, and spend his whole life with her, if she would overlook the fact that they were of different castes; and if she agreed to this they must settle to what country to go.  Somehow news of their intention got about, and the Raja was told that his daughter was in love with the merchant’s son.  Then the Raja gave orders that his daughter was not to be allowed to go outside the palace, and the merchant spoke severely to Kuwar and neither of them was allowed to go to the school any more.  But one day the princess went to the place where the Raja’s horses were tied up and among them was a mare named Piyari and she went up to the mare and said “You have eaten our salt for a long time, will you now requite me?” And Piyari said “Certainly I will!”.  Then the princess asked “If I mount you, will you jump over all these horses and this wall and escape?” And the mare said “Yes, but you will have to hold on very tight.”  The princess said “That is my look-out:  it is settled that on the day I want you you will jump over the wall and escape.”  Then she wrote a letter to Kuwar and gave it to her maid-servant to deliver into Kuwar’s own hands, without letting anyone know:  and in the letter she fixed a day for their elopement and told Kuwar to wait for her by a certain tree.  So on the day fixed after everyone was asleep Kuwar went to the tree and almost at once the princess came to him riding on Piyari; he asked her how she had escaped and whether she had been seen and she told him how the mare had jumped over the wall without anyone knowing; then they both mounted Piyari and drove her like the wind and in one night they passed through the territory of two or three Rajas and in the morning were in a far country.