THE DEAD MAN’S RING
A young married woman one night listened to the jackals’ cry, and heard them say: “Near the river lies a dead man; go and look on his finger and you will find a ring worth nine lakhs of rupees.” She therefore rose and went to the riverside, not knowing that her husband secretly followed in her footsteps. Arrived there, she found the dead man, but the ring was difficult to remove, so she drew it off with her teeth.
Her husband, who did not know she had understood and acted upon the cry of the jackals, was horrified, and thought she was eating the flesh of the dead man; so he returned home, and when the morning came, took his wife to her mother, and said: “I have brought back your daughter, and refuse to live with her any longer, lest I come to some evil end.” He gave no reason for having thus said, and returned to his home.
In the evening his wife sat sorrowfully in the garden of her father’s house, and the crows came to roost in the peepul trees; and as they came, they said: “In this place are buried four boxes containing hidden treasure: dig and find it, O my daughter.” The young girl called her parents and told them the message of the crows. At first they laughed, but, after a while, they dug as she directed, and found treasure which enriched the whole family. The girl then explained the story of the dead man’s ring, and her husband gladly forgave her and received her back.