Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/76

52 Churmusta and the dwelling of the gods, and went forth to seek out his master. But growing weary with the length of the day, and lying down to sleep, when he woke he had forgotten the direction he had to take, so he pursued the path which lay before him, and it led him to the portal of the Schimnu palace.

When he saw it was the Schimnu palace, he would have made good his escape from its precincts, but remembering the words of Churmusta, he knocked boldly at the door. Then the Schimnus flocked round him, and told him he must die unless he could do some service whereby his life might be redeemed; and Massang made answer, "I am a physician." Hearing that, they took him in to the Schimnu-Khan, that he might pluck the arrow out of his forehead.

Massang stood before the Schimnu-Khan; but when he should have pulled out the arrow, he only pulled it out a little way, and the Schimnu-Khan said,—

"Thus far is the pang diminished."

Then, however, first casting seven barley-corns on high towards heaven, he plunged it in again even to the centre of his brain, so that he fell down at his feet dead. And as the seven barley-corns reached the heavens, there came down by their track an iron chain with a thundering clang which the dread Churmusta sent down to Massang, and Massang climbed up by the chain to the dwelling of the gods. But there stood by the throne of the Schimnu-Khan a female Schimnu,