Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/380

372 road, where those robbers were eating the animals they had killed and cooked.

When they saw him coming along with his wife, who was tricked out in all her finery, they set about to seize them. The captain of the robbers, who had some skill in reading men's characters, after looking at him attentively, became aware that this was a first-rate man, and he would not allow any one to molest him.

sent his wife to the robbers and thus addressed her: "Go bring some meat, and say to them, 'Give us too a piece of meat. She went and said: "My man says, 'Give us a piece of meat. The robber-chief ordered a piece of meat to be given to her because he thought him to be an out-and-out good fellow. His men, however, gave her a piece of uncooked meat, saying, "Shall he eat the meat cooked for us?" Thereupon, out of a feeling of self-respect, grew angry with the robbers because they had given him uncooked meat. The robbers started up and in a threatening tone exclaimed, "How's this? This is only one man; are we women (to be afraid of him)?"

struck forty-nine men with as many arrows, and brought them to the ground; but there was no arrow with which he could hit the robber-chief. It is said that he had at first only fifty arrows; one of them he had used to strike the elephant, and with the remainder he had killed the robbers. He knocked down the robber-chief, sat on his breast with the intention of cutting off his head, and drew the sword from the hand of his wife. She, at that very instant, conceived a passion for the robber-chief, and placed the sword in the hand of the robber and the scabbard in the hand of her husband. The robber laid hold of the hilt, drew the sword, cut off 's head, and killed him. Then, as he was going off along with the wife, he made inquiries as to her birth. She replied, "I am the daughter of a celebrated teacher in Takkasilu." "How came it about," he asked, "that this man got you for a wife?" "My father," she answered, "gave me to him, because he thought him to be quite equal to himself in acquiring science. But I, out of friendship to you, have caused the husband, provided with all due solemnity for me by my family, to be killed."