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in confusion and agony, but still the unfortunate woman came back once
more, and looked at him to see if he was still alive. And when she saw
that the Vetála had left his body, and that he was dead and motionless, she departed slowly, weeping with fear and humiliation.
In the meanwhile the thief, who was bidden there, saw all, and said to himself, " What is this that this wicked woman has done? Alas ! the mind of females is terrible and black like a dark well, unfathomable, exceedingly deep for a fall.*[1] So I wonder what she will do now." After these reflections, the thief again followed her at a distance, out of curiosity.
She went on and entered her own chamber, where her husband was asleep, and cried out weeping, " Help ! Help ! This wicked enemy, calling himself a husband, has cut off my nose, though I have done nothing wrong." Then her husband, and her father, and the servants, hearing her repeated cries, woke up, and arose in a state of excitement. Then her father, seeing that her nose had been recently taken off, was angry, and had her husband bound as having injured his wife. But even while he was being bound, he remained speechless, like a dumb man, and said nothing, for all the listeners, his father-in-law and the others, had altogether turned against him.†[2]
When the thief had seen all this, he slipped away nimbly, and the night, which was spent in tumult, gradually passed away, and then the merchant's son was taken by his father-in-law to the king, together with his wife who had been deprived of her nose. And the king, after he had been informed by them of the circumstances, ordered the execution of the young merchant, on the ground that he had maimed his own wife, rejecting with contempt his version of the story. Then, as he was being led to the place of execution, with drums beating, the thief came up to the king's officers and said to them, " You ought not to put this man to death with- out cause; I know the circumstances, take me to the king, that I may tell him the whole story." When the thief said this, they took him to the king, and after he had received a promise of pardon, he told him the whole history of the night from the beginning. And he said, " If your Majesty does not believe my words, look at once at the woman's nose, which is in the mouth of that corpse." When the king beard that, he sent servants to look, and finding that the statement was true, he gave orders that the young merchant should not suffer capital punishment. But he banished his wicked wife from the country, after cutting off her ears also, and punished his father-in-law by confiscating all his wealth, and being pleased with the thief, he made him chief magistrate of the city.
