"I don't know if you are my husband; you are both so much alike that I
cannot tell." Then she broke down and wept.
And the Nāt hearing, smiled where he sat in the shadows.
After awhile the woman dried her tears, smoothed back her heavy masses
of black hair, and asked what was to be done.
They neither of them answered. Then she said, "Let us go and seek Manoo,
and abide by what he says."
Manoo was a very learned judge, who had been appointed, while still
quite young, Chief Justice of the King's Court, and was renowned for the
wise and prudent judgments that he invariably pronounced.
The Nāt objected to the proposition. Secretly he feared that Manoo
might perhaps guess his identity; but the woodman assented eagerly to
his wife's idea, and between them they overcame the other's dislike,
and the three started without delay, going through the forest between
the silvered line of palm-trees; the fire-flies danced before them, and
the bats flitted by like ghosts in the warm darkness. All that night and
part of the next they travelled, until they reached the Court of Manoo,
which was a large white building, supported by chunamed pillars, and
with many carved doors.
The judge himself, magnificently arrayed, sat upon a raised couch, that
was covered with scarlet satin, richly embroidered, and with a heavy
fringe of gold and jewels edging it.
The woman, the Nāt, and the woodman, leaving their shoes at the
gates, entered, and, seating themselves at a respectful distance on
separate pieces of matting, told their tale.
The judge listened in silence to the end; then he asked the woman if
her husband had any particular mark on him by which she could
distinguish him.
Her face lightened as she answered that he had a black mark on his back
and a red scar on his knee. Then Manoo had both men examined carefully,
but found that each had the same marks in the same places.
The woman became more hopelessly bewildered than ever, and knew not what
to make of the extraordinary circumstance; while the judge found himself
in a position of considerable difficulty.
He saw that he would have to consider the matter carefully for some
time; so he bade them go, and return on the following day at the same
hour.
Then he went home to his house, which was a gift from his royal master,
and was situated on a rocky promontory, with the sea rolling up almost
to the entrance. Seating himself alone in his study--the windows of
which looked out over the water to where a rich sunset glowed westward,
edging the waves with freckled lustre, and throwing purple, amber, and
azure lights over the white-crested waves--he became absorbed in deep
thought, as a result of which he came to a solution of the matter. On
the next day, therefore, when his three strange applicants presented
themselves before him, he had a wooden wheel brought into the room and
placed in the middle of the floor, saying at the same time--
"The man who shall go through the hole in that wheel will be a wonderful
man, and will be recognised as the real husband of this woman."
On hearing which the woodman protested, saying that it was impossible
for any human being to go through so small a space, that it was only
large enough to admit of an arm; and he grumbled greatly, saying that
the test was very unfair.
But Manoo bade him be patient and silent yet awhile. Then he turned to
the Nāt, and asked him what he thought. The Nāt, who was laughing
inwardly, at once replied that he could perform the task that the
woodcutter deemed impossible. The judge smiled a little complacently as
he bade him do it.
The Nāt immediately went to and fro through the hole with the
greatest ease, the woman looking on in speechless amaze.