of the village in which the
wicked sorcerer resides, the people of one village will come to a secret
understanding with the people of the sorcerer's village to have the
miscreant quietly put out of the way. A hint is given to the scoundrel's
next of kin, it may be his brother, son, or nephew, that if he will only
wink at the slaughter of his obnoxious relative, he will receive a
handsome compensation from the slayers. Should he privately accept the
offer, he is most careful to conceal his connivance at the deed of
blood, lest he should draw down on his head the wrath of his murdered
kinsman's ghost. So, when the deed is done and the murder is out, he
works himself up into a state of virtuous sorrow and indignation, covers
his head with the leaves of a certain plant, and chanting a dirge in
tones of heart-rending grief, marches straight to the village of the
murderers. There, on the public square, surrounded by an attentive
audience, he opens the floodgates of his eloquence and pours forth the
torrent of an aching heart. "You have slain my kinsman," says he, "you
are wicked men! How could you kill so good a man, who conferred so many
benefits on me in his lifetime? I knew nothing of the plot. Had I had an
inkling of it, I would have foiled it. How can I now avenge his death? I
have no property with which to hire men of war to go and punish his
murderers. Yet in spite of everything my murdered kinsman will not
believe in my innocence! He will be angry with me, he will pay me out,
he will do me all the harm he can. Therefore do you declare openly
whether I had any share whatever in his death, and come and strew lime
on my head in order that he may convince himself of my innocence." This
appeal of injured innocence meets with a ready response. The people dust
the leaves on his head with powdered lime; and so, decorated with the
white badge of spotless virtue, and enriched with a boar's tusk or other
valuable object as the price of his compliance, he returns to his
village with a conscience at peace with all the world, reflecting with
satisfaction on the profitable transaction he has just concluded, and
laughing in his sleeve at the poor deluded ghost of his murdered
relative.[457]

[Sidenote: Comedy acted to deceive the ghost of a murdered kinsman.]

Sometimes the worthy soul who thus for a valuable consideration consents
to waive all his personal feelings, will even carry his self-abnegation
so far as to be present and lo