At last the Brahman's son became very impatient, and said: "If you do
not tell me to-day who you are, O beautiful lady, I will leave this
palace with the seven wings." Then the princess said: "I will certainly
tell you to-morrow."

Next day the Brahman's son, as soon as he came home from school, said:
"Now, tell me who you are." The princess said: "To-night I will tell
you after supper, when you are in bed."

The Brahman's son said : "Very well " ; and he began to count the hours
in expectation of the night. And the princess, on her side, spread
white flowers over the golden bed, and lighted a gold lamp with fragrant
oil, and adorned her hair, and dressed herself in a beautiful robe of
blue, and began to count the hours in expectation of the night.

That evening when her husband, the Brahman's son, had finished his meal,
too excited almost to eat, and had gone to the golden bed in the bed-
chamber strewn with flowers, he said to himself: "To-night I shall
surely know who this beautiful lady is in the palace with the seven
wings."

The princess took for her the food that was left over by her husband,
and slowly entered the bed-chamber. She had to answer that night the
question, which was the beautiful lady who lived in the palace with
the seven wings. And as she went up to the bed to tell him she found a
serpent had crept out of the flowers and had bitten the Brahman's son.
Her boy-husband was lying on the bed of flowers, with face pale in
death.

My heart suddenly ceased to throb, and I asked with choking voice: "What