Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/180

156 from out his girdle. He turned to follow her, but she had already reached her own house before he came up with her, and entering closed the door against him: then in triumph over her success, she proceeded to attempt loosing the ninth knot. Only swinging it as she had seen her brother-in-law do, and not knowing how to temper the force so that it should only just have touched the nose, the blow carried with it so much moment that the hammer went through the man's skull, even to his brain, so that he fell down and died.

By this means, not the half, but the whole of his possessions passed to his elder brother.

"If the man was avaricious, the woman was doubly avaricious," here exclaimed the Khan, "and by straining to grasp too much, she lost all."

"Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened his lips," cried the Siddhî-kür. And with the cry, "To escape out of this world is good," he sped him through the air once again, swift out of sight.