"My love, what's this I hear?" said the king when he went to see his wife. "The doctor says you're very ill, and that you should drink the milk of a tigress. But how can we get it? Who will dare milk a tigress?"
"I think I know someone who is brave enough to milk a tigress---the lad who serves the cook in the palace kitchen. He is brave and faithful, and he'll do anything you ask him to do, out of gratitude for all you've done for him."
When the king asked the young man to go and get the milk of a tigress, he readily agreed. When he started out the next day, against all the women's wails and protests, he met the fakir on the way. When the fakir heard of his dangerous errand, he said to the young man, "Don't go. Who are you to take on such derring-do?" But the fellow was determined to win the king's favor and he was also eager for adventure. The fakir finally said, "All right, then follow my advice and you'll succeed. I'll tell you where to go. When you meet the tigress, aim a small arrow at one of her teats. When the arrow strikes her, she will ask you why you shot at her. Then tell her that you didn't mean to kill her, but only to make a bigger hole in her teats so that she could feed her cubs more quickly. Tell her that you pitied the cubs, who looked weak and sickly as if they needed more milk." Then, with the fakir's blessing, he went to the forest to look for the tigress.
The young man soon saw a tigress with cubs, aimed an arrow at one of the teats, and struck it. The tigress angrily asked him why he had attacked her. He replied as the fakir had told him to, and added that the queen was dangerously ill and needed the tigress's milk for her cure. "The queen!" said the tigress. "Let her die! Don't you know she is an ogress? Keep away from her. She'll kill you and eat you." |
