After that, Mātalānā having been like a friend of the King until three months are coming to an end, one day, at the time when the King is going to the courtesan’s house, he said to the King’s Ministers and servants, “To-day I saw the place where the Mātalan-thief is. In order to seize him [be pleased] to come.”
Summoning in the night time the whole royal retinue, and having gone and surrounded the house of the courtesan, and said [the King] was Mātalānā, there and then also they seized the King. When they seized him in this way, the King through shame remained without speaking. After that, seizing the King and having gone, and having very thoroughly struck him blows, and put him in prison, and kept [him there], in the morning when they looked, just as before they saw that the King had been seized, and struck blows, and put in the stocks.
After all these things, Mātalānā, having again broken into the King’s house, stealing a great quantity of goods, reached an outside district, and dwelt there.
Western Province.
This story is partly a variant of No. 92 in vol. ii.
[1] Not given by the narrator. [↑]
[2] A jungle bush or small tree on which lac is formed, Croton lacciferum. [↑]