"How can thine elder brother have come by all this wealth unless he
hath stolen of our riches?" As she continued saying this often, the
man believed it, and called his elder brother to him and asked him,
"Whence hast thou all this wealth; who hath given it to thee?" And
when he found he hesitated to answer, he added, "Now know I that thou
must have stolen of my treasure; therefore, if thou tell me not how
otherwise thou hast come by it, I will even drag thee before the Khan,
who shall put out both thine eyes."
When the elder brother had heard this threat, he answered, "Going afar
off to a place unknown to thee, having purposed in my mind to die,
I found in a cleft of a rock this sack and this hammer (5)."
"And how shall this rusty iron hammer and this dirty sack give thee
wealth?" again inquired his brother; and thus he pursued his inquiries
until by degrees he made him tell the whole story. Nor would he be
satisfied till he had explained to him exactly the situation of the
place and the way to it. No sooner had he acquainted himself well of
this than, taking with him a cord and an axe, he set out to go there.
When he arrived, he saw an immense number of deformed, ugly spirits,
standing against the rock in eight rows, howling piteously. As he crept
along to observe if there was any thing he could take of them to make
his fortune as his brother had done, one of them happened to look
that way and espied him, after which it was no more possible to escape.
"Of a surety this must be the fellow who stole our bag and
hammer!" exclaimed the ugly spirit. "Let us at him and put him
to death."
The Dakinis were thoroughly out of temper, and did not want any
urging. The words were no soon uttered than, like a flock of birds,
they all flew round him and seized him.
"How shall we kill him?" asked one, as she held him tight by the
hair of his head till every single hair seemed as if forced out by
the roots.
"Fly with him up to the top of the rock, and then dash him down!" cried
some. "Drop him in the middle of the sea!" cried others. "Cut him in
pieces, and give him to the dogs!" cried others again. But the sharp
one who had first espied him said, "His punishment is too soon over
with killing him; shall we not rather set a hideous mark upon him,
so that he shall be afraid to venture near the habitations of his kind
for ever?" "Well spoken!" cried the Dakinis in chorus, something like
good-humour returning at the thought of such retribution. "What mark
shall we set upon him?"
"Let us draw his nose out five ells long, and then make nine knots
upon it," answered the sharp-witted Dakini.
This they did, and then the whole number of them flew away without
leaving a trace of their flight.
Fully crestfallen and ashamed, the avaricious brother determined
to wait till nightfall before he ventured home, meantime hiding
himself in a cave lest any should chance to pass that way and see
him with his knotted nose. When darkness had well closed in only he
ventured to slink home, trembling in every limb both from remaining
fright at the life-peril he had passed through, and from fear of some
inopportune accident having kept any neighbour abroad who might come
across his path.
Before he came in sight of his wife he began calling out most
piteously,--
"Flee not from before me! I am indeed thine own, very own
husband. Changed as I am, I am yet indeed the very self-same. Yet a
few days I will endeavour to endure my misery, and then I will lay
me down and die."
When his neighbours and friends found that he came out of his house
no more, nor invited them to him, nor gave entertainments more, they
began to inquire what ailed him; but he, without letting any of them
enter, only answered them from within, "Woe is me! woe is me!"
Now there was in that neighbourhood a Lama (6), living in contemplation
in a tirtha (7) on the river bank. "I will call in the same," thought
the man, "and take his blessing ere I die." So he sent to the tirtha
and called the Lama.
When the Lama came, the man bowed himself and asked his blessing, but
would by no means look up, lest he should see his knotted nose. Then
said the Lama, "Let me see what hath befallen thee; show it me." But
he answered, "It is impossible to show it!"
Then the Lama said again, "Let me see it; showing it will not harm
thee." But when he looked up and let him see his knotted nose, the
sight was so frightful that a shudder seized the Lama, and he ran away
for very horror." However, the man called after him and entreated him
to come back, offering him rich presents; and when he had prevailed
on him to sit down again, he told him the whole story of what had
befallen him.
To his question, whether he could find any remedy, the Lama made
answer that he knew none; but, remembering his rich presents, he
thought better to turn the matter over in case any useful thought
should present itself to his mind, and said he would consult his books.
"Till to-morrow I will wait, then, to hear if thy books have any
remedy; and if not, then will I die."
The next morning the Lama came again. "I have found one remedy,"
he said, "but there is only one. The hammer and bag of which your
brother is possessed could loose the knots; there is nothing else."
How elated so ever he had been to hear that a remedy had been found,
by so much cast down was he when he learnt that he would have to send
and ask the assistance of his brother.
"After all that I have said to him, I could never do this thing,"
he said mournfully, "nor would he hear me." But his wife would not
leave any chance of remedying the evil untried; so she went herself
to the elder brother and asked for the loan of the sack and hammer.
Knowing how anxious his brother had been to be possessed of such a
treasure, however, the brother thought the alleged misfortune was
an excuse to rob him of it; therefore he would not give it into
her hand. Nevertheless, he went to his brother's house with it,
and asked him what was the service he required of his sack. Then he
was obliged to tell him all that had befallen, and to show him his
knotted nose. "But," said he, "if with thy hammer thou will but loose
the knots, behold the half of all I have shall be thine."
His brother accepted the terms; but not trusting to the promise of one
so avaricious, he stipulated to have the terms put in order under hand
and seal. When this was done he set to work immediately to swing his
hammer, and let it touch one by one the knots in his brother's nose,
saying as he did so,--
"May the knots which the eight rows of evil Dakinis made so strong
be loosed."
And with each touch and invocation the knots began to disappear one
after the other.
But his wife began to regret the loss of half their wealth, and she
determined on a scheme to save it, and yet that her husband should
be cured. "If," said she, "I stop him before he has undone the last
knot he cannot claim the reward, because he will not have removed all
the knots, and it will be a strange matter if I find not the means
of obtaining the hammer long enough to remedy one knot myself." As
she reasoned thus he had loosed the eighth knot.
"Stop!" she cried. "That will do now. For one knot we will not make
much ado. He can bear as much disfigurement as that."
Then the elder brother was grieved because they had broken the
contract, and went his way carrying the sack, and with the hammer stuck
in his girdle. As he went, the younger brother's wife went stealthily
behind him, and when he had just reached his own door, she sprang upon
him, and snatched the hammer from out his girdle. He turned to follow
her, but she had already reached her own house before he came up with
her, and entering closed the door against him: then in triumph over
her success, she proceeded to attempt loosing the ninth knot. Only
swinging it as she had seen her brother-in-law do, and not knowing how
to temper the force so that it should only just have touched the nose,
the blow carried with it so much moment that the hammer went through
the man's skull, even to his brain, so that he fell down and died.
By this means, not the half, but the whole of his possessions passed
to his elder brother.
"If the man was avaricious, the woman was doubly avaricious," here
exclaimed the Khan, "and by straining to grasp too much, she lost all."
"Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened
his lips," cried the Siddhî-kür. And with the cry, "To escape out of
this world is good," he sped him through the air once again, swift
out of sight.