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Updated: May 14, 2025
"Wife, did you sweep the court-yard?" "No," she answered; "I did not do it." Then the Rakshas walked round and round several times, with his nose up in the air, saying, "Some one is here now; I smell flesh and blood. Where can they be?" "Stuff and nonsense!" cried the Rakshas' wife. "You smell flesh and blood, indeed! Why, you have just been killing and eating a hundred thousand people.
"Bless me," thought the Rakshas, "what a terribly ugly face my father Bakshas has got." Then he called out again "O! father Bakshas, you have a very big fierce face, but people have sometimes very big heads and very little bodies; let me see you, body and head, before I go away."
When the Rakshas saw the brothers she was filled with fury. She considered all the jungle belonged to her, and she was not willing that any one else should come there. Her one eye flashed fire, and she seized a stick and began beating the Princes, and each one, as she struck him, was turned into a crow. She then drove them away and went back into her hut and closed the door.
"Heavens and earth!" cried the Rakshas, "I never heard such an extraordinary thing in my life. But if you are my father, let me see your face," for he began to get puzzled and frightened, as the person inside was so very positive. Now the Blind Man and the Deaf Man didn't quite know what to do; but at last they opened the door just a little, and poked the donkey's nose out.
As I came out of the water, carrying a large root on my shoulder, I saw standing on the bank a terrible Rakshas in human form, who called out, in an angry tone "Who are you? Where do you come from? What are you doing here, destroying my flowers?" Without showing any sign of fear, I walked boldly up to him, and said: "I am a brahman, who has just escaped many dangers.
Having learned all this, one day when it was very hot, and the old Rakshas was drowsy, Ramchundra begged leave to shampoo her head, which speedily sent her to sleep; then, gently pulling out two or three of her hairs, he got up, and taking in one hand her wand, and in the other two jars of the magic water, he stealthily left the hut; but he had not gone far before she woke up, and instantly divining what he had done, pursued him with great rapidity.
"Alas, no, my son," she said; "you are too young to help me; and as for my grief, I have never told it to any one. I cannot tell it to you now." But Ramchundra continued begging and praying her to tell him, until at last she did; relating to him all her own and his uncles' sad history; and lastly, how they had been changed by a Rakshas into the black crows he saw around him.
The Rakshas brushed them aside this way and that as though they had been nothing but twigs. On she came, and again the Prince waved the staff. A high mountain arose, but the Rakshas climbed it, and it did not take her long to do this. Now she was so close that Ramchundra could hear her panting, but the edge of the jungle had been reached. He turned and cast the Rakshas' hair behind him.
He plucked a hair from the old hag's head without awakening her, he took a flask of the magic water and the staff from behind the door, and set out as fast as he could go in the direction of the palace. It was not long before he heard the Rakshas coming through the jungle after him, for she had awakened and found him gone.
So they went into the Rakshas's house, and finding some rice, boiled, and ate it. Then they swept the room and arranged all the furniture in the house tidily. But hardly had they finished doing so when the Rakshas and his wife returned home.
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