“Weep no more! I have discovered the meaning of the word.”
Just then the Khan’s guard came to conduct them to the Khan for examination preparatory to their being given over to execution. Here the young student declared to the Khan the meaning of the word Abaraschika. Having heard which the Khan dismissed them all with rich presents, but privately bid them declare to no man the meaning of the word. Then he sent for the minister’s son, and without giving him any hint of his intention, bid him go before him and show him where lay the bones of his son, which when he had seen and built a tomb over them, he ordered the minister and his son both to be put to death.
“That Khan’s son, so well versed in the five kinds of knowledge, would have been an honour and ornament to his kingdom, had he not been thus untimely cut off,” exclaimed the Khan.
And as he let these words escape him, the Siddhî-kür replied, “Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened his lips.” And with the cry, “To escape out of this world is good!” he sped him through the air, swift out of sight.
Tale XVI.
When therefore the Well-and-wise-walking Khan saw that he had again failed in the end and object of his journey, he once more took the way of the cool grove; and having taken the Siddhî-kür captive as before in his bag, in which there was place for a hundred, and made fast the mouth of the same with his cord woven of a hundred threads of different colours, he bore him along to present to his Master and Teacher Nâgârg′una.
And as they went the Siddhî-kür asked him to beguile the way with a tale, or else give the signal that he should tell one. And when the Well-and-wise-walking Khan had given the signal that the Siddhî-kür should tell one, he began after this wise, saying,—