o depart; and the pope, as if
he had not already shown sufficient ingratitude, refused even to grant
him wherewith to support himself on the road. "Then," retorted Don
Illan, "since I have nothing to eat, I must needs fall back on the
partridges I ordered for to-night's supper." He then called out to his
housekeeper and ordered her to cook the birds. No sooner had he thus
spoken than the dean found himself again in Toledo, still dean of
Santiago, as on his arrival, for, in fact, he had not stirred from the
place. This was simply the way the magician had chosen to test his
character, before committing himself to his hands; and the dean was so
crestfallen he had nothing to reply to the reproaches wherewith Don
Illan dismissed him without even a taste of the partridges.[166]

A modern folk-tale from Cashmere tells of a Brahmin who prayed to know
something of the state of the departed. One morning, while bathing in
the river, his spirit left him and entered the body of the infant child
of a cobbler. The child grew up, learned his father's business, married,
and had a large family, when suddenly he was made aware of his high
caste, and, abandoning all, he went to another country. There the king
had just died; and the stranger was chosen in his place, and put upon
his throne. In the course of a few years his wife came to know where he
was, and sought to join him. In this or some other way his people
learned that he was a cobbler; and great consternation prevailed on
account of his low caste. Some of his subjects fled; others performed
great penances; and some indeed burnt themselves lest they should be
excommunicated. When the king heard all this, he too burnt himself; and
his spirit went and re-occupied the Brahmin's corpse, which still lay by
the riverside. Thereupon the Brahmin got up and went home to his wife,
who only said: "How quickly you have performed your ablutions this
morning!" The Brahmin said not a word of his adventures, notwithstanding
he was greatly astonished. To crown all, however, about a week
afterwards a man came to him begging, and said he had eaten nothing for
five days, during which he had been running away from his country
because a cobbler had been made king. All the people, he said, were
running away, or burning themselves, to escape the consequences of such
an evil. The Brahmin, while he gave the man food, thought: "How can
these things be? I have been a cobbler for several years; I have reigned
a