Father Tush at once changed himself into an eagle, and carried the bride away and cast her to the sandy desert. There she fell upon the sand, but did not die.
“O Heaven!” exclaimed the maiden, “what have I done to deserve such treatment.”
She wandered about in the desert without knowing where to go. At nightfall she buried herself in the sand to sleep. Soon there came two conjurers, who sat down near her. They conjured, and lo! innumerable great serpents gathered around them. They sat in council, inquired of each other, and prepared remedies for a thousand and one diseases. For razor cuts they devised this remedy: “Wash the patient with the first milk from the breasts of a woman, and put upon the wounds the dried blood taken from a young woman’s veins. On the third application the patient will be healed.”
The maiden, who was listening to them attentively, kept that remedy in mind, and on the following morning started for her husband’s fountain. After a long journey, she came to her own country, begged from the village women a mother’s first milk, and opening one of her own veins, got some blood which she dried in the sun. She then went to the fountain disguised as a lad.
“Tush!” she exclaimed, and the old man came out.
“What do you want?” said he.
“I am a doctor,” she said; “I had forgotten to get some of my medicines in the village, therefore I said ‘Tush.’”
The old man went in and informed his son that there was a human doctor on the fountain.
“Bring him in,” said the lad, “let us see if he can administer some remedy to my wounds.”