me as he will. My life is wrapped up in him--and when he dies, alas! I
will certainly die too. Is it not plainly said--

'Hairs three-crore, and half-a-crore hairs, on a man so many grow--
And so many years to Swerga shall the true wife surely go?'

And better still is promised; as herein--

'When the faithful wife,[17] embracing tenderly her husband dead,
Mounts the blazing pile beside him, as it were the bridal-bed;
Though his sins were twenty thousand, twenty thousand times o'er-told,
She shall bring his soul to splendor, for her love so large and bold.'

All this the Wheelwright heard. 'What a lucky fellow I am,' he thought,
'to have a wife so virtuous,' and rushing from his place of concealment,
he exclaimed in ecstasy to his wife's gallant, 'Sir I saw you ever truer
wife than mine?'

'When the story was concluded,' said Long-bill, 'the King, with a
gracious gift of food, sent me off before the Parrot; but he is coming
after me, and it is now for your Majesty to determine as it shall please
you.'

'My Liege,' observed the Brahmany-goose with a sneer, 'the Crane has
done the King's business in foreign parts to the best of his power,
which is that of a fool.'

"Let the past pass," replied the King, "and take thought for the
present."