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468 After this consultation, the blind man went and touched the drum, saying: "I will marry the girl." Thereupon the king's men went and reported: "O King, a certain blind man has touched the drum. Decision rests with the king."

And the king said: "Listen.

So the king's men, following their lord's command, took the three-breasted princess to the river-bank, married her to the blind man, and gave him the hundred thousand gold-pieces. Then putting them all in a fishing-boat, they said to the fishermen: "Men, take this blind man, with his wife and the hunchback, to a foreign land, and settle them in some town or other."

So they came to a foreign country, all three of them. There in a certain town they purchased a house and lived comfortably. The blind man, however, spent all his time dozing on a couch. The hunchback did the housework.

In course of time the princess had an intrigue with the hunchback, and she said: "My belovèd, if this blind man happened to be killed, we should live happily together. Please find some poison. I will administer it, will kill him, and will become happy."

Now one day the hunchback picked up a dead