frightened, belaboured his chest with might and main. “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the blind man. “Can you make no more noise than that! Listen to me!” Whereupon he banged his drum, rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub. And the demon with a yell of dismay disappeared into the night.
The two friends slept the sleep of innocence, and when they woke in the morning, found themselves surrounded by jewels, of gold and silver, wherewith they loaded themselves, and went their way. Presently they sat down under a tree to divide their spoil. The hunchback made the partition, and naturally gave himself the largest share. But the blind man, feeling the two heaps, recognised that he had been cheated. So he mixed the two heaps together and bade the hunchback make a fresh division. But the hunchback lost his temper and, crying, “I don’t believe you are really blind,” rubbed a handful of sand into his friend’s eyes. Whereupon the blind man immediately recovered his sight. “What an ugly creature you are!” he said, “with that disgusting hump on your back!” So saying, he fell on his friend, and furiously hammered his. hump, so that he became quite straight and tall.
Whereupon the two friends returned home, and lived happily ever afterwards.
I find that in telling this tale to young people I not only, as above, interpolate the moral “waste not, want not,” which is not in the original Kachārī, but I am tempted to leave out the dividing of the spoil and the miraculous healing of the two friends. That depends, however, on the spirit in which the earlier part of the yarn is taken by my audience. Some children like the full tale, some dislike the ending.
I may mention that many years ago a Hindu friend assured me that some of the Kachārī tales I handed on to him are attributed to the famous Rāja Birbal, of humorous renown.
Cambridge.
