do had sent them to call him;
he was to die that night and they were to take away his spirit; but
they had made the mistake of eating at his hands and although they
must take him away, they would give him advice as to how he might
save his life: he was to take a thin piece of lamp-wick and when
Chando questioned him, he was to put it up his nose and make himself
sneeze. The prince promised to remember this, and that night they
took his spirit away to Chando, but when Chando began to question
him he made himself sneeze with the lamp-wick; thereupon Chando at
once wrote that he should live for sixty years more and ordered the
messengers to immediately restore his spirit to its body. Then the
prince hastened back to his father and mother, and told them that he
had broken through his fate and had a long life before him; and they
had better make arrangements for his marriage at once. This they did
and he lived to a ripe old age, as he had been promised.

CV. The Messengers of Death.

There was once a Brahman who had four sons born to him, but they
all died young; a fifth son however was born to him, who grew up
to boyhood. But it was fated that he too should die before reaching
manhood. One day while his father was away from home, the messengers of
death came to take him away. The Brahman's wife thought that they were
three friends or relations of her husband, who had come to pay a visit,
and gave them a hearty welcome. And when she asked who they were,
they also told her that they were connections of her husband. Then
she asked them to have some dinner and they said that they would eat,
provided that she used no salt in the cooking. She promised not to
do, but what she did was to scatter some salt over the bottom of the
dish. Then she cooked the rice and turned it into the dish and gave
it to them to eat. They ate but when they came to the bottom of the
dish they tasted the salt which had been underneath. Then the three
messengers said "She has got the better of us; we have eaten her salt
and can no longer deceive her; we must tell her why we have come."

So they told her that her son was to die that night and that Chando
had sent them to take away his spirit: all they could do was to
let her come too, and see the place to which her son's spirit was
going. The mother thought that this would be a consolation to her,
so she went with them. When they arrived in the spirit world they
told the Brahman's wife to wait for