Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/101

Rh As he did this, so foul a smell struck the two handmaidens that both of them fell to the ground. One of them gasped and gasped and died, and the other gasped and gasped and recovered. The King asked her what had happened, and she replied: "When you gargled, such a dreadful smell came out of your mouth that she has died, and I am in the state you see me in." The King said: "You have my permission to depart; be off."

Then Nādir Shah started, and took the concubine with him for three marches. Then he presented her with a lakh of rupees and dismissed her, but she began to weep. Nādir Shah asked her what she was weeping for, as he had given her a lakh of rupees and let her go. She said: "You are pleased with me and have given me a lakh of rupees; but one day Muhammad Shah was angry with me and threw his shoe at me. I picked up the shoe and kept it, and I got two lakhs of rupees for that shoe alone, so thickly it was studded with diamonds and precious stones. But you have only given me one lakh when you are pleased with me!"

Then Nādir Shar marched to Umarkot, in Sindh, where Miān Ghulám Shah Sarai was ruler. The Miān came out to salaam to Nādir Shah with his two hands tied together with a kerchief. With him was his Wazīr, Murād Ganja, and his hands were also tied together. Both of them stood before Nādir Shah, and he said to Ghulám Shah: "Who are you who call yourself Shah (King)?" Ghulám Shah replied: "I am not a King, but the King's slave; not Ghulám Shah, but Ghulám-i Shah (slave of the King)." Then Nādir Shah ordered his troopers to untie Ghulám Shah's hands. He touched the kerchief with his hand, and they untied it. Then he told them to loose Murad's hands also. They attempted to do so; but Murad said: "Let him who tied up my hands untie them himself." Then the King touched the kerchief, and they untied it. The King let Ghulám Shah go after exacting a fine from him, and then returned to his own country by way of the Bolan Pass.

[This is a poetical legend which has a wide circulation among the Rind Baloches of the Sulaimān Mountains. The story has a historical foundation in the wars which took place between the