'How came that about?' asked the King. The Parrot related:--
"There was a Wheelwright in Shri-nuggur, whose name was 'Heavy-head,' He had good reason to suspect the infidelity of his wife, but he had no absolute proof of it. One day he gave out that he should go to a neighboring town, and he started accordingly; but he went a very little way, and then returning, hid himself in his wife's chamber. She being quite satisfied that he was really gone away, invited her gallant to pass the evening with her, and began to spend it with him in unrestrained freedom. Presently, by chance, she detected the presence of her husband, and her manner instantly changed.
'Life of my soul! what ails you?' said her lover; 'you are quite dull to-night.'
'I am dull,' she replied, 'because the lord of my life is gone. Without my husband the town is a wilderness. Who knows what may befall him, and whether he will have a nice supper?'
'Trouble thyself no more about the quarrelsome dullard,' said her gallant.
'Dullard, quotha!' exclaimed the wife. 'What matter what he is, since he is my all? Knowest thou not--
'Of the wife the lord is jewel, though no gems upon her beam; Lacking him, she lacks adornment, howsoe'er her jewels gleam?'
Thou, and the like of thee, may serve a whim, as we chew a betel-leaf and trifle with a flower; but my husband is my master, and can do with me as he will. My life is wrapped up in him--and when he dies, alas! I will certainly die too. Is it not plainly said--
'Hairs three-crore, and half-a-crore hairs, on a man so many grow-- And so many years to Swerga shall the true wife surely go?'
And better still is promised; as herein--
'When the faithful wife,[17] embracing tenderly her husband dead, Mounts the blazing pile beside him, as it were the bridal-bed; Though his sins were twenty thousand, twenty thousand times o'er-told, She shall bring his soul to splendor, for her love so large and bold.'
All this the Wheelwright heard. 'What a lucky fellow I am,' he thought, 'to have a wife so virtuous,' and rushing from his place of concealment, he exclaimed in ecstasy to his wife's gallant, 'Sir I saw you ever truer wife than mine?'
'When the story was concluded,' said Long-bill, 'the King, with a gracious gift of food, sent me off before the Parrot; but he is coming after me, and it is now for your Majesty to determine as it shall please you.'