“What shall we do now? The bhûtas have invaded our house, and will soon kill us.”
Mr. Mighty-of-his-mouth told him quietly not to be afraid, but to go and sleep in his original place, and that he himself would make the bhûtas run away. Mr. Mighty-of-his-hands did not understand what his friend meant, but not wishing to argue rolled his way back to his original place and pretended to sleep, though his heart was beating terribly with fright. Mr. Mighty-of-his-mouth now awoke his wife, and instructed her thus:
“My dearest wife, the foolish bhûtas have invaded our house, but if you act according to my advice we are safe, and the goblins will depart harmlessly. What I want you to do is, to go to the hall and light a lamp, spread leaves on the floor, and then pretend to awake me for my supper. I shall get up and enquire what you have ready to give me to eat. You will then reply that you have only pepper water and vegetables. With an angry face I shall say, ‘What have you done with the three bhûtas that our son caught hold of on his way back from school?’ Your reply must be, ‘The rogue wanted some sweetmeats on coming home. Unfortunately I had none in the house, so he roasted the three bhûtas and gobbled them up.’”
Thus instructing his wife Mr. Mighty-of-his-mouth pretended to go to sleep. The wife accordingly spread the leaves and called her husband for his supper. During the conversation that followed, the fact that the son had roasted three goblins for sweetmeats was conveyed to the bhûtas. They shuddered at the son’s extraordinary ability, and thought,
“What must the father do for his meals when a son roasts three bhûtas for sweetmeats?”
So they at once took to their heels. Then going to the brother they had jeered at, they said to him that indeed the kûtas were their greatest enemies, and that none of their lives were safe while they remained where they were, as on that very evening the son of a kûta had roasted three of them for sweetmeats. They therefore all resolved to fly away to the adjoining forest, and disappeared accordingly. Thus Mr. Mighty-of-his-mouth saved himself and his friend on two occasions from the bhûtas.
The friends after this went out one day to an adjoining village and were returning home rather late in the evening. Darkness fell on them before half the way was traversed, and there lay before them a dense wood infested by beasts of prey: so they resolved to spend the night in a high tree and go home next morning, and accordingly got up into a big pîpal. Now this was the very wood into which the bhûtas had migrated, and at midnight they all came down with torches to catch jackals and other animals to feast upon. The fear of Mr. Mighty-of-his-hands may be more imagined than described. The dreaded bhûtas were at the foot of the very tree in which he had taken up his abode for the night! His hands trembled. His body shook. He lost his hold, and down he came with a horrible rustling of leaves. His friend, however, was, as usual, ready with a device, and bawled out:
“I wished to leave these poor beings to their own revelry. But you are hungry and must needs jump down to catch some of them. Do not fail to lay your hands on the stoutest bhûta.”
The goblins heard the voice which was already very familiar to their ears, for was it not the kûta whose son had roasted up three bhûtas for sweetmeats that spoke? So they ran away at once, crying out:
“Alas, what misery! Our bitter enemies have followed us even to this wood!”