head was to be placed before the falling of the fatal axe, was ready and the Emperor arrived to give the final command.
But that command was not to be given, for the man under sentence of death cried out that he had a word for the ears of the Emperor, to whom it was of paramount importance. Being told to speak his thoughts, he said that they must be whispered in the Emperor's ears, so that others might not hear them. The Emperor, fearing some foul play, would not at first allow the near approach of him whom he had sentenced to death, but he was at length prevailed upon by the prime minister to do so. Golami, led close up to him, with his hands pinioned and his legs bound, brought his face near to the Emperor's ears and whispered, "I am no breaker of the law. I am as innocent as your Majesty. I was commissioned to answer the four questions you sent for solution to Raja Prithu. Will you permit me to give you the answers privately in your ear, or publicly so that your subjects may know them?"
The Emperor thinking that, if there was truth in what the man said, he had wronged him grievously, and that therefore it would be just to exonerate and even to reward him in public, bade Golami give the answers aloud. Thereupon the latter cried out, "Reverend Sire, here are the solutions of your questions. The answers I have found in my experiences here. As to the first question, 'Can there be poison in nectar?' Look at that ugly creature, superficially so attractive, waiting there to see me die. She is my wife, and instead of the nectar which I expected to find in her, I have found poison. To try her I gave out that I had committed a robbery, and thus made myself liable to be punished with death, and no sooner had she heard me than she sped to the police to denounce me.
"With regard to the second question, I have found nectar in a vessel of poison. That woman there, of evil repute, whose heart is supposed to contain poison, has been to me like life-giving nectar. She has done for me a service
