My relations, who were not very opulent, were astonished at the grievous imposition which the magician had laid on them.  Yet, rather than we should continue dumb, they consented to give him whatsoever should be necessary for the expense of his sacrifice; and they farther promised that they would reward him for his trouble as soon as the demon by whom we were possessed should be expelled.  He was on the point of commencing his magical operations, when a Brahman, one of our friends, who was present, maintained, in opposition to the opinion of the magician and his assistants, that our malady was not at all the effect of witchcraft, but arose from some simple and ordinary cause, of which he had seen several instances, and he undertook to cure us without any expense.

He took a chafing-dish filled with burning charcoal, and heated a small bar of gold very hot.  This he took up with pincers, and applied to the soles of my feet, then to my elbows, and the crown of my head.  I endured these cruel operations without showing the least symptom of pain, or making any complaint; being determined to bear anything, and to die, if necessary, rather than lose the wager I had laid.

“Let us try the effect on the woman,” said the doctor, astonished at my resolution and apparent insensibility.  And immediately taking the bit of gold, well heated, he applied it to the sole of her foot.  She was not able to endure the pain for a moment, but instantly screamed out, “Enough!” and turning to me, “I have lost my wager,” she said; “there is your leaf of betel.”  “Did I not tell you,” said I, taking the leaf, “that you would be the first to speak out, and that you would prove by your own conduct that I was right in saying yesterday, when we went to bed, that women are babblers?”

Every one was surprised at the proceeding; nor could any of them comprehend the meaning of what was passing between my wife and me; until I explained the kind of wager we had made overnight, before going to sleep.  “What!” they exclaimed, “was it for a leaf of betel that you have spread this alarm through your own house and the whole village?—­for a leaf of betel that you showed such constancy, and suffered burning from the feet to the head upwards?  Never in the world was there seen such folly!” And so, from that time, I have been constantly known by the name of Betel Anantya.

The narrative being finished, the court were of opinion that so transcendent a piece of folly gave him high pretensions in the depending suit; but it was necessary also to hear the fourth and last of the suitors, who thus addressed them: 

 Story of the Fourth Brahman.