Then the Almighty said: “In the city of Sardana lives a rich Begum; do you know her?”
“Yes, O King.”
“Well, the Begum’s treasury is here, and I will advance you five rupees out of it, if, when you return to earth, you promise faithfully to give it back to the Begum.”
So the oil dealer gratefully took the loan, paid his debt, and returned with the angels to earth, where he arrived just too late to re-enter his body, which his friends had already taken away to prepare for burial. Watching his opportunity, he waited till they were otherwise engaged, and at once re-entered it; but when he sat up, and began to speak, his terrified friends and relations fled, thinking it was his ghost.
On this the oil dealer called out: “Do not fear, I am not a spirit; but God has released me, as my days upon earth are not yet fulfilled. The man who ought to have died is Kungra, the vegetable man; go and see whether he is dead or alive.”
The friends, on going to the house of Kungra, found that he had just fallen from a wall and been killed on the spot; all his relations were wailing and lamenting his sudden end.
Thus everybody knew that the words of the old oil dealer were correct.
In the meantime, the oil dealer called his son, and said: “Son, when I went to Heaven I there met a man to whom I owed five rupees, and he caught me and would not let me return before I paid it, so the Almighty advanced me the money from the Begum’s treasury in Heaven, and bade me give her back that amount on my return to earth. Therefore do I entreat you, my son, to come with me, and together we will visit the Begum, and give her five rupees.”
So they took the money and went to the Begum’s house.
“Who are you?” asked she.