As they rested that night in the forest, the younger brother lay awake and overheard a conversation between two Night Jars. They talked on many subjects. At length one of the birds remarked: “How little do people guess that he who eats me will become a Rajah, and he who eats you will become a Prime Minister.”
On hearing this the youngest brother crept out of bed, and taking his gun, shot both birds and cooked them. He ate the female himself, and kept the male for his brother. But while he slept, a venomous snake, which lived in the tree, came down and bit him, so that he died as he slept.
In the morning his elder brother awoke, and found a meal prepared for him, so he ate the bird, and then tried to wake his companion, but soon discovered that the boy was dead. This grieved him very much, and he wept bitterly, and determined to wait till he could return and burn his brother in a way befitting to a good caste Hindu, so he placed him in the branches of the tree and went his way.
The same day Mahadeo and Parbatti were passing that way, and Parbatti, who is ever described as a wilful Goddess, always wanting her own way, asked Mahadeo to see what was in the tree. They soon found the dead boy; and Parbatti insisted that he should be made alive again, so Mahadeo sprinkled a few drops of blood upon him, and he sat up alive and well.
Close to this place a Rajah had just died, and his people placed his crown in the trunk of an elephant, leaving it to him to place it upon the head of any man there; and that man would be their future King. The elephant looked upon them all, and then, walking up to Rupa, placed the crown upon his head.
At first the people objected, because he was a stranger, and did not belong to their town, but after a while they accepted him as their King, and thus the words of the bird were fulfilled.
In the meantime, Bisuntha came to the same city, and begged a night’s shelter. The people were fully aware that night after night a fierce man-eating tiger came to that town, and demanded a man to eat. They did not wish to give one of the men belonging to the town, so Bisuntha, being a stranger, was selected for the tiger, and told to go and sleep in the place where it was likely to come.
At night he lay awake thinking, and the tiger came; but Bisuntha had his sword beside him, so he promptly killed the tiger, and placed its ears and whiskers in his pocket.
In the morning a sweeper came, thinking to find the stranger dead and his bones scattered about, but, instead, he found the tiger dead, and the stranger lying fast asleep; so he resolved to take all the honour of killing the tiger to himself, and went back to the city with the news that he had killed the tiger single-handed, and saved the man. This story was believed, and the sweeper richly rewarded, but Bisuntha heard nothing.
Now there lived in that city a merchant who owned a ship and went to distant cities to trade, but sometimes the ship stuck in the sandbanks, and could not be moved. At such times it was necessary to kill a man, and then the sand was pleased at the sacrifice and let the ship go. It was always difficult to find a man for the purpose, and the Rajah was often asked to select one.