The elder daughter who had been taught the above-mentioned method [of killing the son-in-law], went to sleep, and stayed so. While this man was looking about, he saw that the rope is coming [over the wall into the room].
Taking the rope, he put it on the elder daughter’s neck and made it tight. The Gamarāla, who stayed outside, having tied the [other end of the] rope to the necks of a yoke of buffalo bulls, made them agitated.
When the yoke of cattle had drawn the rope [tight], the Gamarāla, springing and springing upward while clapping his hands, says, “On other days, indeed, he escaped. To-day, indeed, he is caught,” he said.
Thereupon the son-in-law, having stayed in the house, came outside and said, “It is not [done] to me; it is your elder daughter herself,” he said.
Thereupon the Gamarāla in a perplexity says, “Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥! It is the thing which this one has done!” Just as he was saying it the son-in-law cut off his nose. Having cut it off he went to his own country.
Because the word which cannot be said was said [by the Gamarāla] he cut off his nose.
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave a story about a Gamarāla who cut off the nose of any servant who used the words Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥. A young man took service under him in order to avenge his brother who had been thus mutilated; but the incidents differ from those related in the story given by me. The Gamarāla was surprised into saying the forbidden words when the man poured scalding water over him. The servant immediately cut off his nose, ran home with it, and kicked his brother, who was squatting at the hearth, so that he fell with his face against the hearth stone. This reopened the wound; and when the Gamarāla’s nose was fitted on and bandaged there after application of the juice of a plant which heals cuts, it became firmly attached, and as serviceable as the original nose.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 106, there is a story of a Moghul who engaged servants on the condition that if he or the servant became angry the other should pull out his eye. A man who had accepted these terms was ordered to plough six acres daily, fence it, bring game for the table, grass for the mare, and firewood, and cook the master’s food. He lost his temper when scolded, and his eye was plucked out. His clever brother determined to avenge him, was engaged by the Moghul, and given the same tasks. He ploughed once round the six acres and twelve furrows across the middle, set up a bundle of brushwood at each corner, tied the bullocks to a tree, and went to sleep. He played various other tricks on his master, including the cooking of his favourite dog for his food. When the master was going for a new wife, the servant, who was sent to notify his coming, said his master was ill and by his doctor’s orders took only common soap made into a porridge with asafœtida and spices. He was sick in the night after taking it, and next morning the man refused to remove the vessel he had used. As the Moghul was carrying it out covered up with a sheet, the friends being told by the man that he was leaving through anger at the food they gave him, ran out and seized his arms to draw him back, and caused him to drop and break the vessel. On their way home they had a quarrel and a scuffle, the Moghul admitted he was angry at last, and the man got him down and plucked out his eye. Some of the incidents are found in the stories numbered 241 and 242 in this volume.