In the morning the Khan woke, refreshed with his slumber; and when they inquired how he felt, the Khan replied that the soothsayer’s power had diminished the force of the malady.
“If this be even so,” here interposed the soothsayer, “and if the Khan has confidence in the word of his servant, command now thy ministers that they call together all thy subjects—the men with their arms, and the women each with a faggot of wood for burning.” Then the Khan ordered that it should be done according to his word. When they were all assembled, the pretended soothsayer, having set up his pig’s head, commanded further that they should bring the he-goat out of the stable before him; and when they had bound him and brought him, that they should put his saddle on him. Then he sprang on to his back, and gave him three blows with all his strength, and dismounted. Then with all the power of voice he could command, he cried out to him, “Lay aside thine assumed form!”
At these words the he-goat was changed before the eyes of all present into a horrible Manggus, deformed and hideous to behold. With swords and sticks, lances and stones, the whole people fell upon him, and disabled him, and then burnt him with fire till he was dead.
Then said the soothsayer, “Now, bring hither the Khanin.” So they went and dragged down the Khanin to the place where he stood, with yelling and cries of contempt.
With one hand on the pig’s head, as if taking his authority from it, the soothsayer cried out to her, in a commanding voice,—
“Resume thine own form!”
Then she too became a frightful Manggus, and they put her to death like the other.
The soothsayer now rode back to the Khan’s palace, all the people making obeisance to him as he went along—some crying, “Hail!” some strewing the way with barley, and some bringing him rich offerings. It took him nearly the space of a day to make his way through such a throng.
When at last he arrived, the Khan received him with a grateful welcome, and asked him what present he desired of him. The soothsayer answered, with his usual simplicity, “In our part of the country we have none of those pieces of wood which I see you put here into the noses of the oxen: let there be given me a quantity of them to take back with me.” The Khan then ordered there should be given him three sacks of the pieces of wood for the oxen, and seven elephants laden with meal and butter to boot.
When he arrived home, his wife came out to meet him with brandy, and when she saw the seven elephants with their loads, she extolled him highly; but when she came to learn how great was the deliverance he had rendered to the Khan, she was indignant that he had not asked for higher reward, and determined to go the next day herself to the Khan.