Arrived at the bride’s house, they proceeded to celebrate the wedding; but as the Goala touched the bride with his finger to apply the vermilion mark to her forehead, he suddenly became a donkey.  The company were filled with dismay and the bride’s parents declared that they would never let their daughter go away with such a husband, but the bride herself spoke up and said that as Thakur for some reason had given her such a husband she would cleave to him, and nothing that her relations said could shake her purpose; so when the bridal party set out homewards, she went with them to her husband’s house.  But there everyone laughed at her so much for having married a donkey that she made up her mind to run away to another country; so one day she packed up some provisions for the journey and set out, driving the donkey before her.

She journeyed on and on till one day she happened to come to a tank with a large well near it; she turned the donkey loose to graze on the banks of the tank and sat down by the well to eat some of the food which she had with her.  In the fields below the tank were some twenty ploughmen in the service of the Raja of that country, driving their ploughs; and when it got past noon these men began to grumble, because; no one had brought them their dinner; as it got later and later they became more and more violent, and vowed that when anyone did come they would give him a good beating for his laziness.  At last one of the maid-servants of the Raja was seen coming along, carrying their food in a basket on her head and with her child running by her side.  The sight pacified the ploughmen and the maid-servant hastened to set down the basket near them and then went off to the well to draw some water for them.

Just as she was ready to let down the water-pot, a wedding procession passed along the road with drums and music, making a fine show.  The maid could not keep her eyes off this, but at the same time did not wish to keep the ploughmen waiting any longer; so, with her eyes on the procession, she tied the well-rope, as she thought round the neck of the water-pot, but really, without knowing it, she tied the rope round the neck of her own little child and proceeded to lower him into the well.  When she pulled up the rope she found that she had strangled her own child.

She was of course much distressed at this, but she was even more afraid of what might be done to her and at once hit on a device to save herself from the charge of murder.  Taking the dead child in her arms she ran to the ploughmen and scattered all the food she had brought about the ground; then with the child still in her arms, she ran to the Raja and complained to him that his ploughmen had assaulted her, because she was late in taking them their dinner, had knocked the basket of food all about the ground and had beaten her child to death; she added that a strange woman was grazing a donkey near the place and must have seen all that passed.