Sagas from the Far East Part 11

With that she mounted into the wooden garuda-bird into the arms of her husband, and full of joy they flew away together.

But the Khan and his court, when they saw what had happened, were dismayed.

"Because I sent my most beautiful wife to carry food to the garuda-bird, behold she is taken from me," cried the Khan, and he threw himself on the ground as if he would have died of grief.

But the rich youth directed the flight of the wooden garuda-bird, so that it regained the place where his five companions awaited him.

"Have your affairs succeeded?" inquired they, as he descended.

"That they have abundantly," answered the rich youth.

While he spoke, his wife had also descended out of the wooden garuda-bird, whom when his five companions saw, they were all as madly smitten in love with her as the Khan himself had been, and they all began to reason with one another about it.

But the rich youth said, "True it is to you, my dear and faithful companions, I owe it that by means of what you have done for me, I have been delivered from the power of cruel death, and still more that there has been restored to me my wife, who is yet dearer far to me. For this, my grat.i.tude will not be withheld; but what shall all this be to me if you now talk of tearing her from mine arms again?"

Upon which the accountant's son stood forward and said, "It is to me thou owest all. What could these have done for thee without the aid of my reckoning? They wandered hither and thither and found not the place of thy burial, until I had reckoned the thing, and told them whither to go. To me thou owest thy salvation, so give me thy wife for my guerdon."

But the smith's son stood forward and said, "It is to me thou owest all. What could all these have done for thee without the aid of mine arm? It was very well that they should come and find the spot where thou wert held bound by the rock; but all they could do was to stand gazing at it. Only the might of my arm shattered it. It is to me thou owest all, so give me thy wife for my guerdon."

Then the doctor's son stood forward and said, "It is to me thou owest all. What could all these have done without the aid of my knowledge? It was well that they should find thee, and deliver thee from under the rock; but what would it have availed had not my potion restored thee to life? It is to me thou owest all, so give me thy wife for my guerdon."

"Nay!" interposed the wood-carver's son, "nay, but it is to my craft thou owest all. The woman had never been rescued from the power of the Khan but by means of my wooden garuda-bird. Behold, are we six unarmed men able to have laid siege to the Khan's palace? And as no man is suffered to pa.s.s within its portal, never had she been reached, but by means of my bird. So it is I clearly who have most claim to her."

"Not so!" cried the painter's son. "It is to my art the whole is due. What would the garuda-bird have availed had I not painted it divinely? Unless adorned by my art never had the Khan sent his most beautiful wife to offer it food. To me is due the deliverance, and to me the prize, therefore."

Thus they all strove together; and as they could not agree which should have her, and she would go with none of them but only the rich youth, her husband, they all seized her to gain possession of her, till in the end she was torn in pieces.

"Then if each one had given her up to the other he would have been no worse off," cried the Prince. And as he let these words escape him, the Siddhi-kur replied, "Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened his lips." And with the cry, "To escape out of this world is good!" he sped him through the air, swift out of sight.

Of the Adventures of the Well-and-wise-walking Khan the ninth chapter, of the story of Five to One.

TALE X.

When the Well-and-wise-walking Khan found that the Siddhi-kur had once more escaped, he went forth yet another time to the cool grove, and sought him out as before; and having been solicited by him to give the sign of consent to his telling a tale, the Siddhi-kur commenced after the following manner:--

THE BITING CORPSE.

Long ages ago, there lived two brothers who had married two sisters. Nevertheless, from some cause, the hearts of the two brothers were estranged from each other. Moreover, the elder brother was exceeding miserly and morose of disposition. The elder brother also had ama.s.sed great riches; but he gave no portion of them unto his younger brother. One day the elder brother made preparations for a great feast, and invited to it all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The younger brother said privately to his wife on this occasion, "Although my brother has never behaved as a brother unto us, yet surely now that he is going to have such a great gathering of neighbours and acquaintances, it beseemeth not that he should fail to invite also his own flesh and blood."

Nevertheless he invited him not. The next day, however, he said again to his wife, "Though he invited us not yesterday, yet surely this second day of the feast he will not fail to send and call us."

Nevertheless he invited him not. Yet the third day likewise he expected that he should have sent and called him; but he invited him not the third day either. When he saw that he invited him not the third day either, he grew angry, and said within himself, "Since he has not invited me, I will even go and steal my portion of the feast."

As soon as it was dark, therefore--when all the people of his brother's house, having well drunk of the brandy he had provided, were deeply sunk in slumber,--the younger brother glided stealthily into his brother's house, and hid himself in the store-chamber. But it was so, that the elder brother, having himself well drank of the brandy, and being overcome with sound slumbers (1), his wife supported him along, and then put herself to sleep with him in the store-chamber. After a while, however, she rose up again, chose of the best meat and dainties, cooked them with great care, and went out, taking with her what she had prepared. When the brother saw this, he was astonished, and, abandoning for the moment his intention of possessing himself of a share of the good things, went out, that he might follow his brother's wife. Behind the house was a steep rock, and on the other side of the rock a dismal, dreary burying-place. Hither it was that she betook herself. In the midst of a patch of gra.s.s in this burying-place was a piece of paved floor; on this lay the body of a man, withered and dried--it was the body of her former husband (2); to him, therefore, she brought all these good dishes. After kissing and hugging him, and calling upon him by name, she opened his mouth, and tried to put the food into it. Then, see! suddenly the dead man's mouth was jerked to again, breaking the copper spoon in two. And when she had opened it again, trying once more to feed him, it closed again as violently as before, this time snapping off the tip of the woman's nose. After this, she gathered her dishes together, and went home, and went to bed again. Presently she made as though she had woke up, with a lamentable cry, and accused her husband of having bitten off her nose in his sleep. The man declared he had never done any such thing; but as the woman had to account for the damage to her nose, she felt bound to go on a.s.severating that he had done it. The dispute grew more and more violent between them, and the woman in the morning took the case before the Khan, accusing her husband of having bitten off the tip of her nose. As all the neighbours bore witness that the nose was quite right on the previous night, and the tip was now certainly bitten off, the Khan had no alternative but to decide in favour of the woman; and the husband was accordingly condemned to the stake for the wilful and malicious injury.

Before many hours it reached the ears of the younger brother that his elder brother had been condemned to the stake; and when he had heard the whole matter, in spite of his former ill-treatment of him, he ran forthwith before the Khan, and gave information of how the woman had really come by the injury, and how that his brother had no fault in the matter.

Then said the Khan, "That thou shouldst seek to save the life of thy brother is well; but this story that thou hast brought before us, who shall believe? Do dead men gnash their teeth and bite the living? Therefore in that thou hast brought false testimony against the woman, behold, thou also hast fallen into the jaws of punishment." And he gave sentence that all that he possessed should be confiscated, and that he should be a beggar at the gate of his enemies (3), with his head shorn (4). "Let it be permitted to me to speak again," said the younger brother, "and I will prove to the Khan the truth of what I have advanced." And the Khan having given him permission to speak, he said, "Let the Khan now send to the burying-place on the other side of the rock, and there in the mouth of the corpse shall be found the tip of this woman's nose." Then the Khan sent, and found it was even as he had said. So he ordered both brothers to be set at liberty, and the woman to be tied to the stake.

"It were well if a Khan had always such good proof to guide his judgments," exclaimed the Well-and-wise-walking Khan.

And as he let these words escape him, the Siddhi-kur replied, "Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened his lips." And with the cry, "To escape out of this world is good,"

he sped him through the air, swift out of sight.

TALE XI.

Wherefore the Well-and-wise-walking Khan went forth yet again, and fetched the Siddhi-kur. And as he brought him along, the Siddhi-kur told this tale:--

THE PRAYER MAKING SUDDENLY RICH.

Long ages ago, there was situated in the midst of a mighty kingdom a G.o.d's temple, exactly one day's journey distant from every part of the kingdom. Here was a statue of the Chongschim Bodhisattva (1) wrought in clay. Hard by this temple was the lowly dwelling of an ancient couple with their only daughter. At the mouth of a stream which watered the place, was a village where lived a poor man. One day this man went up as far as the source of the stream to sell his fruit, which he carried in a basket. On his way home he pa.s.sed the night under shelter of the temple. As he lay there on the ground, he overheard, through the open door of the lowly dwelling, the aged couple reasoning thus with one another: "Now that we are both old and well-stricken in years, it were well that we married our only daughter to some good man," said the father. "Thy words are words of truth,"

replied the mother. "Behold, all that we have in this world is our daughter and our store of jewels. Have we not all our lives through offered sacrifice at the shrine of the Chongschim Bodhisattva? have we not promoted his worship, and spread his renown? shall he not therefore direct us aright in our doings? To-morrow, which is the eighth day of the new moon, therefore, we will offer him sacrifice, and inquire of him what we shall do with our daughter Suvarnadhari (2): whether we shall devote her to the secular or religious condition of life."

When the man had heard this, he determined what to do. Having found a way into the temple, he made a hole in the Buddha-image, and placed himself inside it. Early in the morning, the old man and his wife came, with their daughter, and offered their sacrifice. Then said the father, "Divine Chongschim Bodhisattva! let it now be made known to us, whether is better, that we choose for our daughter the secular or religious condition of life? And if it be the secular, then show us to whom we shall give her for a husband."

When he had spoken these words the poor man inside the Buddha-image crept up near the mouth of the same, and spoke thus in solemn tones:--

"For your daughter the secular state is preferable. Give her for wife to the man who shall knock at your gate early in the morning."

At these words both the man and his wife fell into great joy, exclaiming, "Chutuktu (3) hath spoken! Chutuktu hath spoken!"

Having watched well from the earliest dawn that no one should call before him, the man now knocked at the gate of the old couple. When the father saw a stranger standing before the door, he cried, "Here in very truth is he whom Buddha hath sent!" So they entreated him to come in with great joy; prepared a great feast to entertain him, and, having given him their daughter in marriage, sent them away with all their store of gold and precious stones.

As the man drew near his home he said within himself, "I have got all these things out of the old people, through craft and treachery. Now I must hide the maiden and the treasure, and invent a new story." Then he shut up the maiden and the treasure in a wooden box, and buried it in the sand of the steppe (4).

When he came home he said to all his friends and neighbours, "With all the labour of my life riches have not been my portion. I must now undertake certain practices of devotion to appease the daemons of hunger; give me alms to enable me to fulfil them." So the people gave him alms. Then said he the next day, "Now go I to offer up 'the Prayer which makes suddenly rich.'" And again they gave him alms.