The judge then decreed that he should be dropped into the sea which covered his victims. When he heard this decision, he said that he had taken leave of his mother supposing that his head was to be cut off, and that, if he was to be drowned, he must go to her and make known his fate, and get her blessing anew. Permission being given, he went and told his brothers what had happened, and the third brother took the place of the second, and presented himself before the judge as the criminal that was to be sunk in the sea. He was carried far from shore and thrown overboard, but he stretched his legs till his feet touched bottom and he stood with his head in the air. They hauled him aboard and took him farther from land, but still his extensible legs supported him above the waters. Then they sailed to mid-ocean, and cast him into its greatest depths, but his legs still lengthened so that he was not drowned. They brought him back to the judge, reported what had been done, and said that some other method of destroying him must be followed.
He was then condemned to death by being boiled in oil; and while the caldron was being heated, he begged and obtained leave to go and tell his mother of his late survival, and, of the manner in which he was soon to be taken off. His brothers having heard the latest judgment, the fourth one went to bear the penalty of the law, and was lowered into the kettle of boiling oil, where he disported himself as if in a tepid bath, and even asked the executioners to stir up the fire a little to increase the warmth. Finding that he could not be fried, he was remanded to prison.
Then the populace, the bereaved parents, and the magistrate joined in effort to invent a sure method of putting him to death. Water, fire and sword all having failed, they finally fixed upon smothering him in a vast cream-cake. The whole country round made contributions of flour for the tough pastry, sugar for the viscid filling, and bricks for a huge oven; and it was made and baked on a plain outside the city walls. Meanwhile the prisoner was allowed to go and bid his mother farewell, and the fifth brother secretly became his substitute. When the cake was done, a multitude of people, with oxen, horses, and ropes, dragged it to the execution ground, and within it the culprit was interred. As he was able to exist without air, he rested peacefully till the next midnight. Then he safely crawled forth, and returned to his home, where he dwelt happily for many years with his remarkable brothers.
The Lac of Rupees
poor blind Brahman and his wife were dependent on their son for their subsistence. Every day the young fellow used to go out and get what he could by begging. This continued for some time, till at last he became quite tired of such a wretched life, and determined to go and try his luck in another country. He informed his wife of his intention, and ordered her to manage somehow or other for the old people during the few months that he would be absent. He begged her to be industrious, lest his parents should be angry and curse him.
One morning he started with some food in a bundle, and walked on day after day, till he reached the chief city of the neighbouring country. Here he went and sat down by a merchant's shop and asked alms. The merchant inquired whence he had come, why he had come, and what was his caste; to which he replied that he was a Brahman, and was wandering hither and thither begging a livelihood for himself, his wife and parents. Moved with pity for the man, the merchant advised him to visit the kind and generous king of that country, and offered to accompany him to the court. Now, at that time it happened that the king was seeking for a Brahman to look after a golden temple which he had just had built. His Majesty was very glad, therefore, when he saw the Brahman and heard that he was good and honest. He at once deputed him to the charge of this temple, and ordered fifty kharwars of rice and one hundred rupees to be paid to him every year as wages.
Two months after this, the Brahman's wife, not having heard any news of her husband, left the house and went in quest of him. By a happy fate she arrived at the very place that he had reached, where she heard that every morning at the golden temple a golden rupee was given in the king's name to any beggar who chose to go for it. Accordingly, on the following morning she went to the place and met her husband.