Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/146

122 At these words both the man and his wife fell into great joy, exclaiming, "Chutuktu hath spoken! Chutuktu hath spoken!"

Having watched well from the earliest dawn that no one should call before him, the man now knocked at the gate of the old couple. When the father saw a stranger standing before the door, he cried, "Here in very truth is he whom Buddha hath sent!" So they entreated him to come in with great joy; prepared a great feast to entertain him, and, having given him their daughter in marriage, sent them away with all their store of gold and precious stones.

As the man drew near his home he said within himself, "I have got all these things out of the old people, through craft and treachery. Now I must hide the maiden and the treasure, and invent a new story." Then he shut up the maiden and the treasure in a wooden box, and buried it in the sand of the steppe.

When he came home he said to all his friends and neighbours, "With all the labour of my life riches have not been my portion. I must now undertake certain practices of devotion to appease the dæmons of hunger; give me alms to enable me to fulfil them." So the people gave him alms. Then said he the next day, "Now go I to offer up 'the Prayer which makes suddenly rich. And again they gave him alms.