But when she came up from bathing, and found what he had done, she said, with many other moving and sorrowful words, “Now can I no more walk with thee, and share thy wanderings.”
So they remained in that place.
Again, another day she went down to bathe in the river, and as she bathed some of her hairs falling off, were carried down the stream.
At a place near the mouth of the stream, a maid belonging to the service of the Khan had gone down to fetch water, and these hairs came out of the water clinging to her water-jar. And as the hairs were wonderful to behold, being adorned with the five colours and the seven precious things[1], she wondered at them, and brought them to the Khan for him to see.
The Khan had no sooner examined them than he came to this conclusion, saying,—
“Somewhere along the course of this stream it is evident there must be living a surpassingly beautiful woman. Only to such an one could these hairs belong.”
Then he called the captain of his guard, and bid him take of armed men as many as ever he would, and by all means to bring unto him the woman to whom these hairs belonged. Thus he instructed him.
But the woman had knowledge of what was going forward, and she came weeping to her husband, and showed the thing to him, “And now,” she said, “the Khan’s soldiers will surround the place, neither is there any way of escape, nor any that can withstand the orders of the Khan. Hadst thou not burnt the red dog form, then had I had a means of refuge.”
Then the man wept too, and would have persuaded her to escape, but she said,—
“It skills not, for they would pursue us and overtake us, and put you to death out of revenge. By going at their command without resistance, at least they will save you alive.”