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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1893.
this had been their state for two or three days past. Towards evening therefore he said to his wife: "Go, wife, and see if you can bring us some of the leavings of the feast. There must be some bones and crumbs left in the pots and dishes; so make haste and do bring as something." The poor woman accordingly went round to the back of her rich relative's house. But she saw at a glance that she was too late, as the pots and pans had already been scrubbed clean, and that there was, therefore, no chance of her getting anything. Just then she saw some white finid in a large tub, and knew that it was the water in which the rice for the feast had been washed. So she begged of the servants to let her have some of it; but the mistress of the house, who happened to come up at the time, forbade them to give her anything at all. "Even this water has its uses," said she," and it must not be wasted," and she relentlessly turned her back on her poor relative, who had to walk home to her unfortunate little ones empty-handed.
When she told her husband how she had been treated by his brother's wife, he was beside himself with rage and disappointment, and swore that he would go that very night to the rich barley fields of his brother and bring away some sheaves of barley, in spite of him, to make bread with for his starving little ones. So he took a scythe, and under cover of night stole noiselessly out of his house, and walked up to his brother's barley fields. But just as he was entering one, his further progress was arrested by somebody, who looked like a watch-man, loudly asking him what he wanted.
"I am come here to take home some barley from this field of my brother, since he is determined not to give me anything, although my children are actually dying for want of food. But who are you, to put yourself thus in my way P"
"I am your brother's nasib (Luck), placed here to guard his possessions, and I cannot let you have anything that belongs to him!" was the stern reply.
“My brother's nas 6 indeed!" exclaimed the poor man in surprise; "then, where on earth has my nasib stowed himself away that he would not help me to procure the means of subsistence for my starving wife and children?"
" Thy nasib !" said the other mockingly; "why, he lies sleeping beyond the seven Beas: go thither if thou wouldst find and wake him !"
So the poor fellow had to trudge back home just as he had come. The words of his brother's nasib, however, jarred on his memory, and he could not resi till he had told his wife of his interview with that strange being. She, in her turn, urged him to go and find out his nasib, and see if he could wake him from his slumbers, as they had suffered long enough from his lethargy.
The husband agreed to this, and the wife borrowed, or rather begged, some barley of her neighbours, ground it, and made it into bread, over which the poor starving children and the unfortunate parents broke their four days' fast. The poor father then took leave of his family, and set out on his journey.
He had proceeded about twelve k88, or so, when he again felt the pangs of hunger, and sat down under the spreading shade of a tree to eat a loaf or two of the bread that his wife had reserved for his journey. Just then, a little mango dropped at his feet from the tree, and on looking up, he saw that he was under a mango-tree filled to luxuriance with a crop of young mangoes. He eagerly picked up the fruit and gnawed at it, but to his great disappointment found that it was quite bitter! So he flung it away from his lips, and oursing his fate for not letting him enjoy even so muoh as a mango, again looked up at the tree and sighed. But the tree echoed back his sighs and said: "Brother, who art thou P and whither dost thou wend thy way? Have mercy upon me!"
“Oh! do not ask me that question," said the poor man in distress, "I do not like to dwell apon it."
