The Music of Hindostan c8.s1.42

c8.s1.42

Then the king commanded to let her go, but to have the other one cooked for to-morrow’s breakfast. But the other fairy thought, ‘If I hold my tongue surely the king will kill me; now is the time to speak’; and he recited a couple of stanzas to make it clear that they had been silent not from unwillingness to obey the king’s word, but because they saw that speaking would be a mistake. And the king said, ‘He speaks the truth; ’tis a sapient fairy.’ And he had the two fairies put in a golden cage, and sending for the huntsman made him set them free in the same place where he had caught them.¹