Months, nay years had passed by, when Bahadūr Singh had occasion to visit a sister who resided at some little distance from Shumshabad, on the high road to Jhelum.
Upon his return he stopped to rest near a Tank, as natives often do, and upon the bank his eye caught sight of a small dark object, and when he had picked it up he found it was very heavy. His curiosity was now greatly aroused, and what was his surprise on opening it, but to discover that it was full of gold mohurs, and when he had counted them over, lo, and behold! there were exactly one hundred.
He was in quite a whirl of delight, and one might have thought that he would have kept the money and not have disclosed the secret to anyone, but as there were just the very one hundred gold mohurs that by their feeling and handling might make the old blind man of his village happy for ever, the first idea that entered his head was to go straight to the spot where he knew he always asked for alms, to let him run his fingers over them.
So without any further ado off he went, and upon reaching the old blind man who was calling out in his usual strain; Bahadūr Singh said, “Here, good old man, this is a lucky day for you, for I have brought you one hundred gold mohurs to feel, and to handle, and to be happy for ever.”
Whereupon Bahadūr Singh handed the gold mohurs one by one into the old blind man’s hand, and he handled them and put them one by one into his wallet, repeating after every one, “Oh! you blessed and good man.” By the time the whole hundred had been counted out a very considerable crowd began to collect, so that Bahadūr Singh thought it better to recover his money and be off. He then asked the old blind man to give it back to him, but who would have thought it? the old villain set up quite another cry, howling, and saying at the top of his voice, “Friends, help me; help the poor blind man who is being robbed of his little all!” And laying fast hold of Bahadūr Singh’s “dhotee” or cloth, he made it appear as if some of his money had already been robbed from him.
Of course the crowd took the side of the blind man, so it was all in vain for Bahadūr Singh to try to get a hearing, and more than that, the crowd set upon him, and would have thrashed him unmercifully had he not made his escape, so he hurriedly left the scene and his money too.
But he was in a fearful rage, and vowed he would have his revenge, and going by a back way to his hut (for he found he was being pursued), he reached it unperceived.
Taking down his sword from the wall, he said to himself, “I know the place where the blind men live, and I know too that the old blind villain will be going home about dusk; I will lie in wait for him and cut him down.”
Bahadūr Singh’s heart, however, began to fail him, “for,” said he, “Is he not a blind man?” Yet the feelings of revenge had so worked him up, that he was furious at being so cunningly deceived and robbed.
In partial hiding he took up his post by the road-side, and he had not long to wait, for very soon the old blind villain hove in sight, tottering along and leaning on his staff. Bahadūr Singh drew his sword from its scabbard and looked first at it, and then at the old blind villain who was drawing nearer and nearer to him.