Meanwhile the Raja was carried down stream by the flood and was washed ashore, bruised and wounded, a long way down.  At the place where he landed a large crowd was collected; for the Raja of the country had lately died leaving no heir, and the widow had ordered all the people to assemble in order that two elephants, belonging to the late Raja, might choose his successor.  The half-drowned Raja joined the crowd and as he sat looking on, one elephant, passing by all its own people, came to him and put the golden necklace on his neck and the other elephant lifted him on to its back and carried him off and seated him on the Raja’s throne; and as he sat on the throne all his wounds and bruises were healed.  Years passed and the Raja’s two sons grew up, and as the Goala woman who had adopted them was very poor, they went out into the world to earn their living.  As it chanced, they took service as sipahis with the Raja their father, whom of course they did not recognise.  Just after their arrival the Raja arranged a great festival at which people from all parts assembled; and among others the merchant went there with the Raja’s wife, in hopes that among the crowd he might find some physician able to cure the woman.  When he arrived, he went to the Raja and asked that two sipahis might be deputed to keep watch over the woman he had brought.  The Raja sent his two newly enlisted sipahis, and thus the sons were set to guard their own mother, and it was not long before they found out their relationship.  The Rani was delighted to recover her long lost children, but when she heard that her husband had been washed away by the river and drowned, she began to weep and wail.  The merchant went to the Raja and complained that the sipahis who had been sent, had thrown the woman into great distress and the Raja thereupon sent for all the parties in order that he might enquire into the matter.  When he heard their story, he at once recognised that it was his own wife and sons who stood before him and thus the whole family was happily united.  Then his wife prayed to Thakur that if she were really the wife he had lost and had been faithful to him, she might be restored to health; water was poured over her and she was at once cured of her disease, and they all lived happily ever afterwards.

LX.  A Variant.—­The Wandering Raja.

Once there was a Raja who was very prosperous; but his wife found their life of wealth and ease monotonous, and she continually urged him to travel into other countries and to see whether other modes of life were pleasant or distressful; she pestered her husband so much that at last he gave way.  He put his kingdom in charge of his father’s sister and her husband and set off with his wife and his two sons as an ordinary traveller.