"Why, friend, haven't you eaten the Kaeppitiya [280] cakes that are
on the trees near this, where you wash?" he asked.
Thereupon the washerman says, "Ane! Friend, although I washed so many
days I have not eaten cakes of trees of the style you mention that
are in this district," he said.
"If so, please eat one from these, to look [what they are like]."
When he gave it to the washerman, the washerman having eaten the cake
and having found much flavour in it, [281] says, "Ane! Oyi! Until
the time when I have gone [there] and come [after] plucking a few of
these cakes, you please remain here."
When he said it, having said, "It is good. Because of the heat of the
sun I will stay beneath this tree," Matalana, having sent the washerman
to pluck the Kaeppitiya cakes and return, [after] tying in a bundle
as many of the King's clothes as there were, went away [with them].
When the washerman comes [after] plucking the cakes, either the clothes
or the man he had set for their protection, not being visible, he went
speedily and gave information to the King. The King having become more
angry than he was before, again employed the notification tom-tom [to
proclaim] that to a person who, having seized, gives him this Matalana
who steals the things belonging to the King, he will give goods
[amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, and a share from the kingdom.
Matalana, ascertaining that he sent the notification tom-tom, having
stayed on the path and made the notification tom-tom halt, promised:
"I know Matalana. Within still three months I will seize and give
that Matalana while in a courtesan's house." The notification tom-tom
beater, accepting this word, went, and when he gave information to
the King, the King, because of the anger there was [in him] with this
thief, having become much pleased told him to summon the man to come.
Thereupon, after Matalana came to the royal house, when he asked,
"In about how many days can you seize and give Matalana?" he said,
"In about three months I can."
After that, Matalana having been like a friend of the King until three
months are coming to an end, one day, at the time when the King is
going to the courtesan's house, he said to the King's Ministers and
servants, "To-day I saw the place where the Matalan-thief is. In
order to seize him [be pleased] to come."
Summoning in the night time the whole royal retinue, and having
gone and surrounded the house of the courtesan, and said [the King]
was Matalana, there and then also they seized the King. When they
seized him in this way, the King through shame remained without
speaking. After that, seizing the King and having gone, and having
very thoroughly struck him blows, and put him in prison, and kept
[him there], in the morning when they looked, just as before they saw
that the King had been seized, and struck blows, and put in the stocks.
After all these things, Matalana, having again broken into the King's
house, stealing a great quantity of goods, reached an outside district,
and dwelt there.
Western Province.
This story is partly a variant of No. 92 in vol. ii.