Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/104

80 be brought, and made him sit down thereon beside him.

Then he said to him, "That thou hast delivered this country from the fear of drought, is matter for which we owe thee our highest gratitude; but that thou and this my daughter also have escaped from death is a marvellous wonder. Tell me now, art thou in very truth the son of the Hermit?"

"No," replied Sunshine, "I am the son of a mighty Khan; but my step-mother, seeking to make a difference between me and this my brother standing beside me, who was her own born son, and to put me to death, we fled away both together; and thus fleeing we came to the Hermit, and were taken in by his hospitality."

When the Khan had heard his words, he promised him his daughter in marriage, and her sister, to be wife to Moonshine. Moreover, he endowed them with immeasurable riches, and gave them an escort of four detachments of fighting-men to accompany them home. When they had arrived near the capital of the kingdom, they sent an embassage before them to the Khan, saying,—

"We, thy two sons, Sunshine and Moonshine, are returned to thee."

The Khan and the Khanin, who had for many years past quite lost their reason out of grief for the loss of their children, and held no more converse with men,