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APRIL, 1890.)
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA, No. 82.
127
ing musician, in the verandah of whose house she was openly sitting. Wishing to examine further, the King in his disguise stood before the house and said, "Fire-wood to sell! Cheap firewood! Who will buy my fire-wood." The musician was attracted by the voice, and demanded the price of the bundle. The King, whose object was to stand there for a time and see what passed, demanded a low price at which he knew his wares would not be rejected. The musician, thinking the price very cheap, ordered him to take it inside the house and throw it on the wood heap. The apparent wood-seller obeyed the order and returned to demand the price. " Wait a moment, you fool, you are a rude fellow that does not know when to speak; wait,” said the master. And our hero, glad at heart at the opportunity afforded him to test his wife, gladly consented, saying, "My master, why should you be so much enraged at a poor wood-seller who is ever ready to obey your orders; I will wait the whole day, if you order me to do so." So saying, ho sat down below the verandah, looking as if he were waiting for the price of his wood.
In Hindu society, the mere fact of a respectable woman sitting with a musician and playing dice with him would be enough to make a man suspect her character. The familiarity of her speech and other things that followed gave ample proofs of his wife's conduct to the disguised King. The day was almost approaching to its close, and yet the pair had not left off playing. At twilight the lady said she would be absent for only a few ghatikas and return to him during the night. When the wood-seller heard this, he praised his good fortune for the oppor. 'tunity thus offered him of witnessing his wife's conduct. The musician, in the hurry of parting with his lady-love, forgot all about the wood-seller, who remained complacently waiting outside.
Before the first watch of the night was over, the King's wife returned, and in passing into the house trod over her own husband sitting in the dark verandah! Said she, “Who are you, sir, sitting here in the dark P" "Your humble wood-seller whom the master of the house has not yet paid," replied he. She then chided the musician for not having already paid the man and sent him away. But he excused himself by saying that he had no change, and that he intended to give the poor fellow some food for the night and then send him away. “Do me that favour, my lord; that is more than payment to me," cried our hero most piteously.
Food was hastily given him, and then the musician and the King's wife entered their sleeping apartment. Our hero, after eating a little, took his bed in the outer verandah, apparently to sleep, but really to keep himself awake and examine his wife's conduct still further. In this he was very successful, overhearing enough of the conversation that passed between the musician and the lady to give him a clear idea of the latter's character.
Next morning, when the King's wife was returning home, she had suspicions abuut the wood-seller, who was still asleep in the outer verandah. She had not closely watched him the previous day, and his disguise was not easily to be seen through. But in the morning, when his limbs were fully stretched in the profound sleep that came upon him after his long wakefulness, she, notwithstanding the clever disguise assumed, strongly suspected him to be her husband. The King now suddenly awoke and, still pretending to be a wood-seller, said, "My good lady, the food that the master of the house gave me last night stretched me senseless in this verandah. May God give you long life. I go now." And so saying he made off.
His wife, half suspecting that he was her husband, but hoping that after all he was only a wood-seller closely resembling her husband, returned home hastily, and sent for two murderers, promising them a good reward if they would only fly after the person she described and murder him. They agreed, and she ascended with them to the topmost storey of her house and watched in the direction in which the pretended wood-seller had gone. It had not been very difficult for her to point him out, nor had it been in any way a matter of difficulty to the murderers to mark him down. Then she hastily sent them away, and these raffians vanished like hawks after their game.
When the King had met his wife face to face in the morning he feared that, being a
