Moreover, one of them was named Tāpāi, and the ghostly assemblage were mightily vexed at a mortal’s familiar use of their comrade’s name. They threatened him with instant death. The Brāhmaṇ, in terror, felt for his sacred thread, but it had slipped down. He strove to repeat the holy names of the gods, but his memory was paralysed with fear. But finally the thread came into his hand, and taking heart, he boldly asserted that he knew Tāpāi quite well, seeing that Tāpāi and his ancestors for three generations had been the slaves of his family. “Well,” cried Tāpāi, “if he can tell me the names of my ancestors, I will become his bond servant.” To which the keen-witted priest replied: “How can I be expected to know the names of all the slaves of my ancestors? But I have them recorded in a ledger at home.” On which he was allowed to depart on condition that he returned on the third day to answer to Tāpāi’s challenge. Otherwise not only he but his family would perish at the hands of the man-eating bhūtas.
The Brāhmaṇ went home, saved for the moment, indeed, but filled with despair for the future. For two miserable days the wretched priest could neither eat nor sleep, and his wife and daughter and infant son shared his anxiety. The third night, when his family slept, the miserable man went forth to hang himself in the jungle rather than face his ghostly foes. But on the very tree he chose for his suicide were two dark forms. He shuddered, he stood still, but he listened. It was Tāpāi and his wife, and the latter, with true feminine curiosity, was asking her husband the names of his forebears. Of course Tāpāi had to tell, as every husband does when his wife presses him. He recited the following verse:
Hāramu,
And his son Chhāramu,
And his son Āpāi,
And his son Tāpāi.
Such was the verse which the Brāmaṇ committed to memory, and groping his way home through the dark forest, faced life with a new confidence. Next evening he went to the ghostly rendezvous, and the unlucky Tāpāi followed him home, his submissive slave.
