"My dear friend, we both are mighty in our way, and so it would be shameful for us to buy the goat, that we want to sacrifice, with money. We should manage to get it without payment."
"Yes, we must do so, and I know how," replied Mr. Mighty-of-his-mouth, and he asked his friend to wait till that evening.
Now there lived a shepherd at one ghatikâ's (hour's) distance from their house, and the two friends resolved to go to his fold that night and steal away one of his goats. Accordingly, when it was dark, they approached his fold. The shepherd had just finished his duties to the mute members of his flock, and wanted to go home and have his rice hot. But he had no second person to watch the flock, and he must not lose his supper. So he planted his crook before the fold, and throwing his blanket (kambalî) over it, thus addressed it:
"My son, I am very hungry, and so must go for my rice. Till I return do you watch the flock. This wood is rich in tigers and goblins (bhûtas). Some mischievous thief or bhûta--or kûta [54] may come to steal away the sheep. Watch over them carefully." So saying the shepherd went away.
The friends had heard what the shepherd said. Of course, Mr. Mighty-of-his-mouth laughed within himself at this device of the shepherd to impress upon would-be robbers that he had left some one there to watch his sheep, while really he had only planted a pole and thrown a blanket over it. Mr. Mighty-of-his-hands, however, did not see the trick, and mistaking the stick to be an actual watchman sitting at his duty before the fold, spoke thus to his friend:
"Now what are we to do? There is a watchman sitting in front of the fold." Thereon, Mr. Mighty-of-his-mouth cleared away his doubts by saying that it was no watchman, but a mere stick, and entered the fold with his friend.
It had also so happened that on that very night a bhûta (goblin) had come into the fold to steal away a sheep. It shuddered with fear on hearing the shepherd mention the kûta, for having never heard of the existence of kûtas, it mistook this imaginary being to be something superior in strength to itself. So thinking that a kûta might come to the fold, and not wishing to expose itself till it knew well what kûtas were, the bhûta transformed itself into a sheep and laid itself down among the flock. By this time the two Mighties had entered the fold and begun an examination of the sheep. They went on rejecting one animal after another for some defect or other, till at last they came to the sheep which was none other than the bhûta. They tested it, and when they found it very heavy--as, of course, it would be with the soul of the bhûta in it--they began to tie up its legs to carry it home. When hands began to shake it the bhûta mistook the Mighties for the kûtas, and said to itself:--