During their absence, a Muhammadan trader in cloth who was coming along the road, found the sack, and heard a voice proceeding from it: “Alas! What a trouble this is that has come upon me! How can I govern a kingdom when I cannot either read or write?”
The trader immediately untied the sack, and questioned Loku-Appu as to how he came there. Loku-Appu explained to the trader that he was about to be made a king, but not possessing the requisite amount of knowledge for such a high position he had refused the dignity; and now he was being carried off in this way to be put on the throne. “By force they are going to make me king,” he said.
The trader remarked to him, “It will be a great favour if you will let them do it to me instead”; and eventually they changed places, Loku-Appu tying the trader in the sack, and he himself taking the man’s clothes and bundle of cloth. Loku-Appu then hid himself.
In a short time the tom-tom beaters came back, carried away the sack with the would-be king, and threw it into the river.
As they were returning past a part of the river, they saw, to their intense surprise, Loku-Appu washing clothes in it. They came to him and said, “What is this, Loku-Appu? Where have you come from? Where did you get all this cloth?” He replied, “These are the things which I found in the river bottom when you threw me in with the sack. As they are rather muddy I am cleaning them.”
The tom-tom beaters said that they would be greatly obliged if he would put them in the way of getting such treasures, so he requested them to bring sacks like that in which he had been tied.
They soon came back with the sacks, were tied up in them, and were thrown into the river by Loku-Appu.
Then Loku-Appu went to the tom-tom beaters’ village, and took possession of their lands and houses.
Some of the incidents of this story are found in No. [58] also.