the offerings necessary for
compelling him to fly.

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