At night the simple man came limping home footsore and in sorry plight. “Where is the horse and the arms?” inquired his wife as she saw him arrive on foot.
“To-day I encountered the mighty rider, Surja-Bagatur, and having challenged him to fight,” answered he, “I overcame him and humbled him utterly. Only that the wrath of the hero at what I had done might not be visited on us, I propitiated him by making him an offering of the horse and the arms and all that I had.”
So the woman prepared roasted corn and set it before him; and when he had well eaten she said to him, “Tell me now, what manner of man is the hero Surja-Bagatur, and to what is he like[4]?”
And the simple man made answer, “But that he wore never a beard, even such a man would he have been as thy father.”
And the wife laughed to herself, but told him nothing of all she had done.
“That was a prudent woman, who humbled not her husband by triumphing over him!” 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.
Of the adventures of the Well-and-wise-walking Khan the seventeenth chapter, of the Simple Husband and the Prudent Wife.