what he should do if the Nats
took all his food and left him with nothing. But no Nats came, although
the Burmans called again and again. So they packed up the food, saying
that now the Nats would be pleased at the courtesy shown to them, and
that my friend would have good sport. Presently they went on, leaving,
however, an egg or two and a little salt, in case the Nats might be
hungry later, and true enough it was that they did have good luck. At
other times, my friend says, when he did not observe this ceremony, he
saw nothing to shoot at all, but on this day he did well.

The former history of all Nats is not known. Whether they have had a
previous existence in another form, and if so, what, is a secret that
they usually keep carefully to themselves, but the history of the Popa
Nats is well known. Everyone who lives near the great hill can tell you
that, for it all happened not so long ago. How long exactly no one can
say, but not so long that the details of the story have become at all
clouded by the mists of time.

They were brother and sister, these Popa Nats, and they had lived away
up North. The brother was a blacksmith, and he was a very strong man. He
was the strongest man in all the country; the blow of his hammer on the
anvil made the earth tremble, and his forge was as the mouth of hell. No
one was so much feared and so much sought after as he. And as he was
strong, so his sister was beautiful beyond all the maidens of the time.
Their father and mother were dead, and there was no one but those two,
the brother and sister, so they loved each other dearly, and thought of
no one else. The brother brought home no wife to his house by the forge.
He wanted no one while he had his sister there, and when lovers came
wooing to her, singing amorous songs in the amber dusk, she would have
nothing to do with them. So they lived there together, he growing
stronger and she more beautiful every day, till at last a change came.

The old king died, and a new king came to the throne, and orders were
sent about to all the governors of provinces and other officials that
the most beautiful maidens were to be sent down to the Golden City to be
wives to the great king. So the governor of that country sent for the
blacksmith and his sister to his palace, and told them there what orders
he had received, and asked the blacksmith to give his sister that she
might be sent as queen to the king. We are not told what arguments the
gove