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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
It is said that we should not go empty-handed to children, a king, or a pregnant woman: so I shall give you one hundred apúpa cakes, packed up separately in a vessel, which you must give to her. You are very fond of apupas, and I fear that you will eat some of them on the way but you had better not do so. And I will give you some cakes packed in a cloth separately for you to eat on your journey."
So the first wife spent the whole night in preparing the apúpa cakes, and mixed poison in the sugar and rice-flour of those she made for her co-wife and rival; but as she entertained no enmity against her husband the apupa cakes for him were properly prepared. By the time the morning dawned she had packed up the hundred apúpas in a brass vessel, which could be easily carried on a man's head.
After a light breakfast-for a heavy one is always bad before a journey on foot-the Brahman placed the brass vessel on his head, and holding in his hand the kerchief containing the food for himself on the way started for the village of his second wife, which happened to be at a distance of two days' journey. He walked in hot haste till evening approached, and when the darkness of night overtook him, the rapidity of his walk had exhausted him, and he felt very hungry. He espied a wayside shed and a tank near his path, and entered the water to perform his evening ablution to the god of the day, who was fast going down below the horizon. As soon as this was over he untied his kerchief, and did full justice to its contents by swallowing every cake whole. He then drank some water and, being quite overcome by fatigue, fell into a deep slumber in the shed, with his brass vessel and its sweet, or rather poisonous, contents under his head.
[APRIL, 1885. princess in the night without her knowledge while she was sleeping, to his palace in the woods. In obedience to their chieftain's order the robbers, on the night the Brahman happened to sleep in the shed, entered the king's palace and stole away the princess, together with the cot on which she was sleeping. On reaching the shed the hundred robbers found themselves very thirsty -for being awake at midnight always brings on thirst. So they placed the cot on the ground and were entering the water to quench their thirst. Just then they smelt the apúpa cakes, which, for all that they contained poison, had a very sweet savour. The robbers searched about the shed, and found the Brahman sleeping on one side, and the brass vessel lying at a distance from him, for he had pashed it from underneath his head when he had stretched himself in his sleep. They opened the vessel and to their joy found in it exactly one hundred apúpa cakes.
"We have one here for each of us, and that is something better than mere water. Let us each eat before we go into it," said the leader of the gang, and at once each man swallowed greedily what he had in his hand, and immediately all fell down dead. Lacky it was that no one knew of the old Brahman's trick, Had the robbers any reason to suspect it they would never have eaten the cakes. Had the Brahman known it he would never have brought them with him for his dear second wife. Lucky was it for the poor old Brahman and his second wife, and lucky was it for the sleeping princess, that these cakes went, after all, into the stomachs of the villainous robbers!
Close by the spot where the Brahman slept there reigned a famous king who had a very beautiful daughter. Several persons demanded her hand in marriage, among whom was a robber chieftain, who wanted her for his only sou. Though the king liked the boy for his beauty, the thought that he was only a robber for all that prevented him from making up his mind to give his daughter in marriage to him. The robber-lord, however, was determined to have his own way, and accordingly despatched one hundred of his band to fetch away the
After sleeping his fill the Brahman, who had been dreaming of his second wife all night, awoke in haste to parsue the remainder of his journey to her house. He could not find his brass vessel, but near the place where he had left it he found several men of the woods, whom he knew very well by their appearance to be robbers, as he thought, sleeping. Angered at the loss of his vessel he took up a sword from one of the dead robbers and cut off all their heads, thinking all the while that he was killing one hundred living robbers, who were sleeping after having eaten all his cakes. Presently the princess's cot fell under his gaze, and he approached it and found on it a most beautiful lady fast asleep. Being an
