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98 was bidden to act as barber and cut the monarch's hair, and after he had done so he invariably disappeared and was never seen or heard of again. Of course, it was easy to guess that he had been put to death. Needless to say, the fathers and mothers of young men lived in constant dread and hated the Khan with their whole hearts, yet they had no power to withstand his orders.

Now it happened one day that the Khan's messenger stopped at the house of a widow who had only one child,—a fine, handsome lad whom she loved better than life itself. It had fallen to the lot of this youth, Daibang by name, to be the Khan's barber on the following day; but when the widow heard the news, instead of vainly weeping and complaining as others had done, she went at once to her kitchen, for she had devised a plan whereby her son might yet be saved. With great care she baked some little cakes of rice flour and