Ranee

“ Anar Ranee was overjoyed to see them again, for she had long mourned her husband as dead. When Buccoulee Ranee was told who Anar Ranee was and taken to see her, she felt very much frightened, for she thought, “Perhaps she will be jealous of me and hate me.” But with a gentle smile Anar Ranee came to meet her, saying, “Sister, I hear it is to you we owe the preservation of the Rajah, and that it was you who killed the Cobra; I can never be sufficiently grateful to you, nor love you enough, as long as I live.” ”

“ The Ranee, on hearing how well the Princesses fared, was exceedingly angry, and sent her servants to pull down the dead Ranee’s tomb and fill the little tank with the ruins. And not content with this, she next day pretended to be very, very ill—in fact, at the point of death; and when the Rajah was much grieved, and asked her whether it was in his power to procure her any remedy, she said to him: “Only one thing can save my life, but I know you will not do it.” ”

“ The Ranee consented, and while thus blindfolded, became the mother of six sons and one daughter.
As soon as they were born, the old dhai carried them outside and threw them into a hole in a potter’s field, and there left them to die, while she told the Ranee that she had given birth to a piece of iron! The poor Ranee was terribly disappointed, and so was the Rajah, but they submitted to what they thought was the will of God. But the potter’s wife found the children, and as she was childless, she carried them home and looked well after them, so that they all lived and grew. ”

“ Meantime the palace Malee's wife went out, as her custom was every morning and evening, to gather flowers. In search of them she wandered as far as the jungle at the bottom of the garden, and there she found the Panch-Phul Ranee lying as dead, and the dead baby beside her.
The good woman felt very sorry, and rubbed the Ranee's cold hands, and gave her sweet flowers to smell, in hopes that she might revive. At last she opened her eyes, and seeing the Malee's wife, said, 'Where am I? has not my husband come back? and who are you? ”

“ I know not by what irresistible impulse I was induced to throw myself into your milk can. Mother—it was my destiny, and as soon as you took me into your house, I began to recover my human form."
"Why, then," asked her brothers and sisters, "why do you not tell the Rajah that you are living, and that you are the Ranee Surya Bai?"
"Alas," she answered, "I could not do that. Who knows but that he may be influenced by the first Ranee, and also desire my death. Let me rather be poor like you, but safe from danger." ”

“ So she went, and her father was delighted to see her; but her stepmother, though she pretended to be very kind, was, in reality, only glad to think she had got the Ranee into her power, and determined, if possible, never to allow her to return to the palace again. One day therefore she said to her own daughter: "It is hard that your stepsister should have become Ranee of all the land instead of being eaten up by the great fish, while we gained no more than a lac of gold mohurs. Do now as I bid you, that you may become ranee in her stead." ”

“ But the cobra said, 'You did certainly very wrong to tell the Rajah that story; nevertheless, you have been very kind to me. I will help you in your difficulty. Send your husband here. I will provide you with a father and mother of whom you need not be ashamed.' So the Ranee returned joyfully to the palace, and invited her husband to come and see her parents. ”

“ He at once went to the old Ranee and told her he dared no longer work near the well, for he believed a witch or a demon lived there under the steps; and he repeated what his little daughter had told him.
The wicked nurse was with the Ranee when the workman came to her. As soon as he had gone, the nurse said: “I am sure some of those children must still be alive. They must have escaped from the rat holes and be hiding under the steps. If we send out there we will probably find them.” ”

“ It was not long before people knew that a most beautiful lady dressed like a Ranee was living with the old peasants. The news came even to the palace, so the Rajah heard about it, and he began to wonder whether it were possible this beautiful lady could be his lost Ranee. One day he set out with only his faithful councilor{22} for company, and went to the house of the old peasants and knocked on the door.
The old woman who was Surya Bai’s mother looked out of the window, and when she saw the Rajah there, she was very much frightened. ”

“ But she replied, “Sire, even in your anger you were temperate; if you had caused me to be put to death, as some would have done, none of this good might have come upon you; it is yourself you have to thank.”
The wicked first Ranee was cast, for the rest of her life, into the prison in which the old attendant had been thrown; but Surya Bai lived happily with her husband the rest of her days; and in memory of her adventures, he planted round their palace a hedge of sunflowers and a grove of mango trees. ”

“ Some day she may poison or otherwise injure you;” but Surya Bai would answer her, “Nonsense! what is there to be alarmed about? Why cannot we both live happily together like two sisters?” Then the old woman would rejoin, “Ah, dear lady, may you never live to rue your confidence! I pray my fears may prove folly.” So Surya Bai went often to see the first Ranee, and the first Ranee also came often to see her.
One day they were standing in the palace courtyard, near a tank, where the Rajah’s people used to bathe, and the first Ranee said to Surya Bai, “What pretty jewels you have, sister! ”

“ But when the widow came, she told him that she had played this trick because she wanted to gain an audience with him; and she spoke so cleverly, and pleased him so well with her cunning words, that instead of punishing [115] her the Rajah married her, and made her his Ranee, and she and her daughter came to live in the palace.
The new Ranee hated the seven poor princesses, and wanted to get them, if possible, out of the way, in order that her daughter might have all their riches and live in the palace as princess in their place ”

“ The officers and punchayets of the troops, regular and irregular, to the number of a couple of thousand, crowded to the Durbar and demanded the reason; the Ranee tried to soothe them, saying, that the fortunate hour being passed, the march could not be undertaken till the astrologers found another. The crowd demanded that this should be instantly done, and the court astrologer was ordered into their presence to find the proper time. He pored through his tables for two or three hours, while the Ranee sought to divert the attention of the military mob ”

“ After a while the young Ranee had a son, and he was called Ramchundra. He grew up straight and tall, and he was the joy of his mother’s eyes.
One day, when he was fourteen years old, and big and strong for his age, he sat in the garden with his mother. The crows flew down about them, and she began to caress and talk 242 to them as usual. “Ah, my dear ones!” she cried, “how sad is your fate! If I could but release you, how happy I should be.”
“Mother,” said the boy, “I can plainly see that these crows are not ordinary birds. ”

“ He said, 'The boy is free to go, but I don't see how he is to live in any other part of the world, for he is too stupid to earn his living, and I will give him no money to squander on senseless pleasures.' Then the Ranee told her son that he had his father's permission to travel, and said to him, 'You are going out into the world now to try your luck; take with you the food and clothes I have provided for your journey.' And she gave him a bundle of clothes and several small loaves, and in each loaf she placed a gold mohur, that on opening it he might find money as well as food inside ”

“ Now see what trouble she got into for not telling the truth.
"Only!" said the Rajah; "why this is valuable enough to [411] buy the whole of my kingdom. Your parents must be very rich people to be able to send you such presents as this. How is it you never told me of them? Where do they live?" Now she had to tell another story to cover the first. She said: "In the jungle." He replied: "I will go and see them; you must take me and show me where they live." Then the Ranee thought: "What will the Rajah say when he finds I have been telling him such stories? He will order my head to be cut off." ”

“ The old Ranee whom we called upon had on this strap (in her case a broader one, about three fingers wide) 156 large turquoises, worth some hundreds of pounds. Over their ears they wear flaps of fur which project forward with precisely the effect of blinkers on a horse.
The climate is delightful; it never rains; the sky is 167 blue to a fault, and snow only falls sparingly in winter, though the climate is cold, being 10,000 feet (they say) above the sea. ”

“ Rane.
"I'll find this man," said Richard, as he got up to say goodnight; "I must find him. Thank you, Rane."
But after his departure Oliver Rane did not settle to his work as before. A man, once interrupted, cannot always do so. All he did was to pace the room restlessly with bowed head, as a man in some uneasy dream. The candle burnt lower, the flame grew above the shade, throwing its light on his face, showing up its lines and angles. But it was not any brighter than when the green shade had cast over it its cadaverous hue.
"Edmund North! Edmund North!" ”

“ This morning I was in North Inlet, looking a bit after them scamps of workmen that won't work, and won't let others work if they can help it: and after I had given a taste of my mind to as many of 'em as was standing about, I stepped into Mother Green's. She has the rheumatics--and he has a touch of 'em. Talking with her of one thing and another, we got on to the subject of Dr. Rane and the tontine; and she said two or three words that frightened me; frightened me, Jelly; for they pointed to a suspicion that the doctor had sacrificed his wife to get it. ”

“ Rane could not stay indoors to indulge his grief and play propriety, as most men can. Danger and death were abroad, and the physician had to go forth and try to avert both from others, in accordance with his duty to Heaven and to man. That he felt his loss keenly, was evident; there was no outward demonstration; neither sighs nor tears; but he seemed as a man upon whom some heavy weight had fallen; his manner preoccupied, his bearing almost unnaturally still and calm. Phillis and Mrs. Gass were talking, and, if truth must be told, shedding tears together, when the doctor came in. ”

“ Think what the nearby Temple of Medinet might at this very moment hold for Professor Ranney! The tomb of Amenhotep, son of Hap; the Magic Book of the Sorcerers of Pharaoh, the Luminous Book of Thoth!
Had they had the least suspicion of Professor Ranney’s secret it is safe to say that many of his brother scientists would gladly have bartered five years of their lives for a chance at the site. And yet, could any one of those enthusiasts have foreseen the disaster that would here befall him, not a man among them would have approached it. ”

“ Dale is a safe man; so it seems a perfect mystery. And mark you, Rane--that letter was written to damage me at the Hall, not Edmund North."
Dr. Rane gazed at the other in great surprise. "To damage you?"
"It is the view I take of it. And so, on reflection, does Richard North."
"Nonsense, Alexander!"
"If ever the hidden particulars come to light, you will find that it is not nonsense, but truth," was the surgeon's answer. "I must have some enemies in the neighbourhood, I suppose; most professional men have; and they no doubt hoped to do for me with Mr. North. ”

“ In the morning about seven o'clock, when she was upstairs in her chamber, she heard the sound of a gig in the lane, and looked out. It was Dr. Rane, returning from his visit to his patient. His face was white and troubled. An ordinary passer-by would have said the doctor was cold: Jelly drew a different conclusion.
"It's his conscience," she mentally whispered. "It's the thought of having to live in his house now that he knows what's in it. ”

“ In the dining-room when it grew too dark for Dr. Rane to pursue his writing; in the drawing-room, into which Bessy would wile him, and sing to him one of her simple songs; walking together, arm within arm, in the garden paths, the stars in the summer sky above them, the waving trees round about them, the subject of the tontine would be taken up: the tontine; nothing but the tontine. No wonder that they grew to form plans of what they would do if the money were theirs: we all know how apt we are to let imagination run away with us, and to indulge visions that seem to become almost realities. ”

“ Not a soul in the whole wide world but herself (saving of course Dr. Rane) had the faintest idea that the death was not a natural one. Jelly moaned and groaned, and thought her fate unjustly hard that she should have been signalled out by Heaven--for so she solemnly put it--for the revelation, when there were so many others in the community of Dallory who might have done it better than herself. Jelly had periods of despondency, when she did not quite know whether her head was on or off, or whether her mind wouldn't "go." ”

“ Oliver Rane put down the newspaper.
"Well, is there any change in Edmund North?"
"The very slightest in the world, the doctors think; and for the better," replied Captain Bohun. "Dick told me. I have not been in myself since early morning. I cannot bear to look on extreme suffering."
A ghost of a smile flitted across Dr. Rane's features at the avowal. He could understand a woman disliking to look on suffering, but not a man. ”