This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE ENCHANTED PILLOW
111

But he was not able to do so, though he shook him and called to him many times. Then, looking upon him, he saw that he was dead, and he called the others, and they saw it and were afraid, for they knew not why he had died so quietly, and they said, "Who hath bewitched him?"

Then he was buried, and his name was no more spoken amongst them for that he was dead. But on the next night, another man, seeing the pillow lying without one to claim it as his, took it for his own, and lay down to sleep. And on the morrow, he also was dead when the other men arose. Therefore they said, "What cometh to the potuma at night that two men have died? Let us set a watch that we may know who is our enemy." And they did even as they had said, and one of them hid in the potuma all that day. Yet saw he nought. But towards evening a little child, who was playing with his friends outside the door, climbed in to see what was in the house. On a sudden the watcher saw the pillow fly into the air and fall with great force on the head of the child. The little lad lay dead upon the ground, and the pillow was standing in its place again ere the man who saw the deed could move. Then he called to the men who were waiting in their houses, and they came and carried the dead child to his mother.

Then they bethought them of the pillow which had caused the death of three people, and they made ready to take vengeance. They brought faggots of