Meantime the poor man had completed the prayers and the ceremonies ‘to make suddenly rich,’ and he said, “Now will I go and fetch the maiden and the treasure.” With that he traced his way back over the steppe to the place where he had buried the box, and dug it out of the sand, not perceiving that the Prince’s servants had taken it up and buried it again. Then, lading it on to his shoulder, he brought the same into his inner apartment. But to his wife he said, “To-night is the last of the ceremony ‘for making suddenly rich.’ I must shut myself up in my inner apartment to perform it, and go through it all alone. What noise soever thou mayst hear, therefore, beware, on thy peril, that thou open not the door, neither approach it.”
This he said, being minded to rid himself of the maiden, who might have betrayed the real means by which he became possessed of the treasure, by killing her and hiding her body under the earth.
Then having taken off all his clothes, that they might not be soiled with the blood he was about to spill, and prepared himself thus to put the woman to death, he lifted up the lid of the box, saying, “Maiden, fear nothing!” But on the instant the tiger sprang out upon him and threw him to the ground. In vain he cried aloud with piteous cries. All the time that his bare flesh was delivered over to the teeth and claws of the unpitying tiger his wife and children were laughing, and saying, “How is our father diligent in offering up ‘the Prayer which makes suddenly rich!’”
But when, the next morning, he came not out, all the neighbours came and opened the door of the inner apartment, and they found only his bones which the tiger had well cleaned; but having so well satisfied its appetite, it walked out through their midst without hurting any of them.
In process of time, however, the maiden whom the Khan’s son had taken to his palace had lived happily with him, and they had a family of three children; and she was blameless and honoured before all. Nevertheless, envious people spread the gossip that she had come no one knew whence; and when they brought the matter before the king’s council it was said, “How shall a Khan’s son whose mother was found in a box under the sand reign over us? And what will be thought of a Khan’s son who has no uncles?”
These things reached the ears of the Khanin, and, fearing lest they should take her sons from her and put them to death that they might not reign, she resolved to take them with her and go home to her parents.
On the fifteenth of the month, while the light of the moon shone abroad, she took her three sons and set out on her way.
When it was about midday she had arrived nigh to the habitation of her parents; but at a place where formerly all had been waste she found many labourers at work ploughing the land, directing them was a noble youth of comely presence. When the youth saw the Khan’s wife coming over the field he asked her whence she came; answering, she told him she had journeyed from afar to see her parents, who lived by the temple of Chongschim Bodhisattva on the other side of the mountain.
“And you are their daughter?” pursued the young man.
“Even so; and out of filial regard am I come to visit them,” answered the Khanin.