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JANUABY, 1926]
FOLK-TALES FROM NORTHERN INDIA
43
When he got to his house, his daughter asked him why he was so late in bringing the wood, and when he told her all that had happened, she said "No gift can make a man rich unless it is God who gives it."
Next day he went again into the jungle, and again & whirlwind appeared and the same horseman with it. He said to Sulaiman : “You wretch! You have broken your word and oome here again, though I made you rich for life with the ruby."
Sulaiman told him how he had tied the ruby in his turban, and how the kite had carried it off. The horseman then gave him another ruby and disappeared. Sulaiman again tied it in his turban, and again, as he came near his house, a kite carried it off. When he told his daughter what had happened, she said :-"Why do you trouble yourself about foolish things? It would have been better had you brought your wood and sold it. Now, what have we to eat to-day! I told you that to become rich depends upon the will of God."
Next day again Sulaiman went to the jungle. Again the horseman appeared and upbraided him, and again Sulaiman told him how the kite had carried off the ruby. The horseman said : -"You should in future fast on the seventh, seventeenth and twenty-seventh days of the month; and when you eat, buy food only to the value of three pice."
"But where am I to get even three pice ?" he asked. “Daily," said he, "put two cowries out of your earnings into an earthen pot, and by the day when you have to fast, you will have collected three pice which you can spend on food."
Sulaiman did as he was ordered, and next day when he went to the jungle, he found his two turbans under a tree and the rubies with them. So he took them home and commenced to fast as he had been directed. By the grace of the Almighty, he became by degrees a very rich man and after some time his daughter said to hin: "It is time that you got honour from the Emperor."
So he prepared a vessel set with diamonds and presented himself before the Emperor Akbar, who, after he had enquired about him, took him into favour and made him one of his Vazirs. And his daughter was received with honour in the palace.
One day he thought to himself that, now he was a rich man, it was folly to fast as he had been doing ; so he gave up the practice, and, as he was walking through the bazar, he Baw two splendid water-melons, which he bought as a present for the king. That day the son of the king had gone out hunting, and when the king opened the melon, what did he see within it but the head of the prince. So he had Sulaiman arrested and lodged in the prison, and at the same time all his wealth disappeared. As he lay in the prison, he began to reflect and knew that all the trouble which had befallen him was due to his having broken the rule of fasting. Just then the horseman appeared to him in a dream and said:
"I am the Khwaja Khizr. Have you been sufficiently punished for your sins ?" “My punishment is great," he answered.
He replied: "Keep your fasts again. You will find three pice under the carpet on which you say your prayers."
Sulaiman looked under the carpet and found the money; and then he began to wonder how he could get someone to bring him three pice worth of food from the bazar. So he went up on to the roof of the prison, and then saw a man riding quickly past on a camel. He asked him to buy him food and he said: "I am hastening to buy dye for the feet of my son who is to be married to-day. I have no time to do your bidding."
By and by another man passed with tears in his eyes. When Sulaiman asked him to bring him food from the bazar ho said: "My son has just died and I am going to buy his shroud. But, for the love of God I will do your bidding."
Just as he was buying the food, a man came up and told him that his son had come to life, while another man reported to the rider of the camel that his son had just died.
