Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/34

10 opening thy lips, if only thou nod thy head backwards towards me. At this sign I will tell a tale." So the Well-and-wise-walking Khan nodded his head backwards towards the Siddhî-kür, and the Siddhî-kür told this tale:—

ages ago there reigned a young Khan whose father had died early and left him in possession of the kingdom. He was a youth comely to look upon, and dazzling in the glory of his might. To him had been given for his chief wife the daughter of a Khan of the South. But the young Khan loved not this wife. At a mile's distance from his palace there lived in her father's house a well-grown, beautiful maiden, of whom he had made his second wife; as she was not a Khan's daughter he feared to take her home to his palace, lest he should displease his mother, but he came often to visit her, and as they loved each other very much, she asked no more.

One night, when the moon was brightly shining, some one knocked at the window, the maiden knew it was the Khan's manner of knocking, so she opened to him,—but with trembling, for he had never been wont to come at that hour; yet by the light of the