witted, said that a bull had attacked her in the road, and in running away she dropped her money. When she escaped him she ran back and picked up the dust about the place, in hopes it might contain her money. Whereon her husband praised her for a plucky woman.
Story No. 11.—One day a woman's headless trunk was found by four cross roads, and there was no clue to the murder. So the king ordered a report to be made of what all passers might say. A lady passed, and looking at it said, "She did it, but did not know how to do it" (is ne kíá aur kar na jáná). Being asked what she meant she replied—"If she had had sense she would not have met with such a fate." This did not satisfy the king, who had her locked up, and supplied her with food himself daily. However, she got her paramour to undermine her cell, and through this she used to visit him, and gave birth to a child. Her lover was a friend of the king, and at his house she used to meet the king, much to his astonishment; for when he went to the cell there she was. At last she got her lover to borrow the king's dromedary, and on it they escaped with their child. She left a letter behind explaining the story, and saying—"If the other woman had known how to do it, as I did, she would not have met such a fate."
Story No. 12. A woman was with her paramour when her husband came up. She hid him in a corner, and said, "When I send him to the closet you run away." When the husband came in she sent him off to the closet at once, saying a thief is in there. On this the lover ran off, and the husband, thinking him the thief, was going after him, when the wife prevented him, saying, "He has a drawn sword in his hand."
Story No. 13.—A woman, caught by the husband with her paramour, made the latter stand in the yard with a white sheet over him. On opening the door she said to her husband that a ghost (bhút) is in the yard. Seeing the white figure, the husband petitioned it to go away, whereon it began slowly to move, and went off, much to the husband's relief.[1]
- ↑ This book is evidently a modern Indian version of these almost universal tales.
