Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/246

222 the form of the red-coloured dog again, and they journeyed on. One morning, however, before she put on the dog form, she went down to bathe in the river, and while she was gone, the man burnt the dog form, saying, "Now must she always remain as a beautiful woman."

But when she came up from bathing, and found what he had done, she said, with many other moving and sorrowful words, "Now can I no more walk with thee, and share thy wanderings."

So they remained in that place.

Again, another day she went down to bathe in the river, and as she bathed some of her hairs falling off, were carried down the stream.

At a place near the mouth of the stream, a maid belonging to the service of the Khan had gone down to fetch water, and these hairs came out of the water clinging to her water-jar. And as the hairs were wonderful to behold, being adorned with the five colours and the seven precious things, she wondered at them, and brought them to the Khan for him to see.

The Khan had no sooner examined them than he came to this conclusion, saying,—

"Somewhere along the course of this stream it is evident there must be living a surpassingly beautiful woman. Only to such an one could these hairs belong."

Then he called the captain of his guard, and bid him