The Raja at once sent a Sipahi to fetch the ploughmen and when they came before him he asked them what had happened, and bade them swear before Sing bonga whether they were guilty of the murder.  The ploughmen solemnly swore to speak the truth, and then told the Raja exactly what had happened, how the woman had killed her child by mistake and then falsely charged them with the murder.  Then the Raja asked them whether they had any witnesses, and they said that there was no one of their own village present at the time, but that a strange woman was grazing an ass on the banks of the tank, who must have seen all that happened.  Then the Raja sent two sipahis to fetch the woman, telling them to treat her well and bring her along gently.  So the sipahis went to the woman and told her that the Raja wanted her on very important business; she made no demur and went to fetch her donkey.  The sipahis advised her to leave it behind to graze, but she said that wherever she went the donkey must go and drove it along with her.

When she appeared before the Raja he explained to her what had happened, and how the maid-servant told one story about the death of the child and the ploughmen another, and he charged her to speak the truth as to what she had seen.  The Goala’s bride answered that she was ready to take an oath and to swear by her donkey:  if she spoke the truth the donkey would turn into a man, and if she lied it would retain its shape.  “If you take that oath,” said the Raja, “the case shall be decided accordingly.”  Then the Goala’s wife began to tell all that she had seen and how the ploughmen were angry because their dinner was late, and how the maid-servant had gone to the well to draw water and had strangled her child by mistake and had then knocked over the basket and charged the ploughmen with the murder.  “If I have lied may Chando punish me and if I have spoken the truth may this ass become a man;” so saying she laid her hand on the back of the animal and it at once resumed its human shape.

This was sufficient to convince the Raja, who turned to the maid-servant and reproached her with trying to ruin the ploughmen by her false charge.  She had no answer to make but took up the dead body of the child and went out without a word.

Thus the Goala was restored to his original shape, but he and his faithful wife did not return to their own relations; they took service with a farmer of that country and after a time they saved money and took some land and lived prosperously and well.  From that time men of the Goala caste have always been very careful to treat cattle well.

LXXXVIII.  The Telltale Wife.

Once upon a time a man was setting out in his best clothes to attend a village meeting.  As he was passing at the back of the house his maid-servant happened to throw a basket of cowdung on the manure heap and some of it accidentally splashed his clothes.  He thought that he would be laughed at if he went to the meeting in dirty clothes so he went back to change them; and he put the dirty cloth he took off in an earthen pot and covered the mouth with leaves and hung it to the roof of the room in which he and his wife slept.