ing them on
his donkey, set out to sell them. As he found no buyers, he rested for
the night under a tree by the road side. Presently a band of merchants
with well loaded pack-bullocks came to the place. "You must not camp
here" called out Lelsing to them "I have two sacks of gold coin here
and you may take an opportunity to steal them. If you are honest men,
you will go to a distance." So the merchants camped a little way off,
but in the middle of the night they came and carried off Lelsing's
sacks, leaving two of their own in their place, and hurried on their
way. In the morning Lelsing made haste to carry home the sacks which
had been changed, and when he came to open them he found them full
of rice and rupees. He sent his mother to borrow a measure from his
brothers with which to measure the rupees; and when he returned it,
he sent it to them full of rupees.

His brothers came running to know where he had found so much money. "I
got it by selling the ashes of my house" said Lelsing "and it is a
pity that I had only one house; if I had had more houses, I should
have had more ashes, and should have got more money still." On hearing
this the brothers at once made up their mind to burn their own houses,
and take the ashes for sale. But when they did so and took the ashes
for sale from village to village they were only laughed at for their
pains, and in the end had to throw away the ashes and come back empty
handed. They were very angry at the trick which Lelsing had played
on them and decided to kill him and his mother; but when they went
to the house to do the murder, Lelsing happened to be away from home
and so they were only able to kill his mother.

When Lelsing came home he found his mother lying dead. He placed the
body on his donkey and carried it off to burn it on the banks of the
Ganges. As he went, he saw a large herd of pack bullocks coming along
the road. He quickly propped the body of his mother against a tree
which grew by the road and himself climbed into its branches, and when
the bullocks came up he began to call out "Take care, take care: you
will have my sick mother trampled to death." But the drivers were too
far behind to hear what he said. When they came up, he climbed down
from the tree and charged them with having allowed their bullocks to
kill his mother. The drivers had no wish to face a charge of murder;
and in the end, to secure their release, they made over to Lelsing
all their bullocks, w