When they had been living together for a while, there came a day when the Malaki wanted to go and visit a man who was a great worker in brass,—­the Malaki Tuangun; [79] and the Moglung gave him directions for the journey, saying, “You will come to a place where a hundred roads meet.  Take the road that is marked with the prints of many horses and carabao.  Do not stop at the place of the crossroads, for if you stop, the Bia [80] who makes men giddy will hurt you.”

Then the Malaki went away, and reached the place where a hundred roads crossed, as Moglung had said.  But he stopped there to rest and chew betel-nut.  Soon he began to feel queer and dizzy, and he fell asleep, not knowing anything.  When he woke up, he wandered along up the mountain until he reached a house at the border of a big meadow, and thought he would stop and ask his way.  From under the house he called up, “Which is the road to the Malaki Tuangun?”

It was the Bia’s voice that answered, “First come up here, and then I’ll tell you the road.”

So the Malaki jumped up on the steps and went in.  But when he was inside of her house, the Bia confessed that she did not know the way to the Malaki Tuangun’s house.

“I am the woman,” she said, “who made you dizzy, because I wanted to have you for my own.”

“Oh! that’s the game,” said the Malaki.  “But the Moglung is my wife, and she is the best woman in the world.”

“Never mind that,” smiled the Bia.  “Just let me comb your hair.”  Then the Bia gave him some betel-nut, and combed his hair until he grew sleepy.  But as he was dropping off, he remembered a certain promise he had made his wife, and he said to the Bia, “If the Moglung comes and finds me here, you be sure to waken me.”

After eight days had passed from the time her husband left home, the Moglung started out to find him, for he had said, “Eight days from now I will return.”

By and by the Moglung came to the Bia’s house, and found the Malaki there fast asleep; but the Bia did not waken him.  Then the Moglung took from the Malaki’s toes his toe-rings (paniod [81]), and went away, leaving a message with the Bia:—­

“Tell the Malaki that I am going back home to find some other malaki:  tell him that I’ll have no more to do with him.”

But the Moglung did not go to her own home:  she at once started for her brother’s house that was up in the sky-country.

Presently the Malaki woke up, and when he looked at his toes, he found that his brass toe-rings were gone.

“The Moglung has been here!” he cried in a frenzy.  “Why didn’t you waken me, as I told you?” Then he seized his sharp-bladed kampilan, and slew the Bia.  Maddened by grief and rage, he dashed to the door and made one leap to the ground, screaming, “All the people in the world shall fall by my sword!”