Astonished at these words her mother looked up, but saw no one, only a Ground-Pigeon perched on the tree over her head.  “Father,” she cried to her husband who was at work beside her, “did you not hear Coora’s voice just now?”

“Yes, I thought so,” answered the father angrily.  “The wicked girl must have disobeyed me and have followed us here after all.  I will punish her if this is so.”  They called to her, “Coora, Coora!” until the forest reechoed.  But no one appeared or answered.

“I will go home and see if she is there,” said the mother.  “Either I heard Coora speak or there is some magic in the forest.”  And she hastened back to the cottage.  There she found the baby in the hammock and the bracelets and earrings in a shining heap behind the door, as the voice had said, but there was no Coora anywhere.  Surprised and anxious, once more the mother ran back to the plantation.

“Coora is gone, husband!” she cried.  “It must have been her own voice which we heard just now.  Hark!  She speaks again!”

Again from the tree they heard a sweet voice calling, “Mother, O Mother, I have left my earrings and bracelets behind the door and my little sister in the hammock.  Good-by, Coo-o-o-ra!” As she spoke her own name Coora’s voice warbled and crooned into the soft coo of a Ground-Pigeon’s note, and her parents glancing up saw that this bird must be their child, their Coora, magically changed.

“Let us cut down the tree and catch the wicked girl!” cried the father.  And seizing his axe he chopped away lustily until the tree fell with a crash.  But even at that moment the Pigeon fluttered away to another tree, crooning again the soft syllables which she has spoken ever since, “Coo-ra, coo-ra, coo!”

From tree to tree about the rice plantation the distracted parents pursued the Pigeon; but it was in vain to try to capture her.  Ever she escaped them when they seemed about to lay hands upon her soft feathers.  After following her flight for many miles they were obliged to return home, sad and sorry and repentant.  For they knew now that it was their own unkindness and their broken promises which had driven their daughter away from the cottage, never to return.

The beautiful Ground-Pigeon still lingers near the rice plantations which she had so longed to visit.  Still she plaintively calls her name, and still she wears the necklace about her pretty little neck.  And the little Malay maidens love her very dearly because she was once a girl like them.

SISTER HEN AND THE CROCODILE