The Baitalpachisi Author:Duncan Forbes Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: a hut remained there. Hearing this reply, Baital went and suspended himself in the same tree again. The king also pur- sxiing him arrived, and having tied and pl... more »aced him on his shoulder carried him again. THIRD STORY Baital said, 0' king! There is a city called Bardwan. There was a k'ing in it by name Rupsen. It so happend one day that the King was sitting in some place next to his threshold' when the voice of some strangers (lit; men above) began to come from without the gate. The king inquired, who is there at the gate ? And what is the noise going on ? In the meanwhile the porter replied, 0' lord. This is a good question your majesty has asked; taking it to be a wealthy man's threshold, for the sake of money many men are coming and sitting there, and are talking on various subjects. This is the noise of those people. Having heard this the king remained silent. In the meantime a Rajput traveller by name Birbar came to the king's threshold from the Southern region, in hopes of obtaining service. The gate-keeper having learnt his circumstances reported it to the king, [saying] 0' lord ! An armed person is come in hopes of serving, and is standing at the gate. Should he obtain your Majesty's permission, he will come to [your] presence. Hearing this the king said, bring [him]. He having gone brought him. Then the king asked, 0' Rajput! What shall I appoint for thy daily expenses ? Having heard this Birbar said, if you give me a thousand Tolas of gold daily, I shall be able to live (lit: my maintenance may be.) The king asked, how many persons are there with you ? He replied, first a wife, the second a son, the third a daughter, and the fourth myself; there is no fifth [person] with us. Having heard these words from him, the people ofthe king's court turning away their fa...« less