out of the cup. They quite thought that her desecration of the cup had caused its magic to vanish, and, at a loss what to do, they looked into it carefully, and turned it up and down several times; but not a morsel of food such as would satisfy the smallest of small microbes could they find in it. So the woman, handing it back to her husband, instead of dashing it to the ground as she had half a mind to do, sat down and began to weep, for she felt keenly her husband's cruelty in playing what she fancied was a practical joke while she was almost dying of starvation.
The Brahmin, amazed beyond measure at the failure of the divine cup to produce food, began to examine it carefully, as if there were some flaw which prevented the magic working; but he failed to discover any, and then put all the blame upon his wife, for had she not desecrated the cup? However, "It's no use crying over spilt milk," he thought, and, seeing his wife actually starving, and suddenly remembering the remains of his recent meal in the folds of his turban, he gave them to her to eat.
"Have you broken your fast, dear?" she asked him, ashamed of her conduct in desiring to satisfy her hunger before her lord had eaten. "How selfish I am!" said she. "I will not eat a morsel of this food unless you share it with me." And it was only when he had sworn to her a hundred times that he had already attended to his own wants that she could be persuaded to partake of some.
The next day the Brahmin youth again repaired to the foot of the same banyan-tree, and began to rend the air with still louder cries and lamentations than he had raised the evening before.
