Before it came down, he jumped up, not waiting to see if they would prevent it from crashing on top of him with ropes or whatever.

All the little men laughed when they saw him leap to his feet. They had apparently been testing his spiritual strength. “Mr. Bag,” said the little headman, “you will be good enough to become minister of police.”

This enigmatic statement seemed to mean that a man did not need a great deal of bravery to be minister of police, and that Bag would never be a hero. Sobered, Bag walked out of the cave, unhindered by the cheerful little men, and by the time he came home that evening he had all but forgotten this little adventure.

But many years later he was to be reminded of the leader’s words. Once again Bag found himself in an unfamiliar and mountainous countryside. Suddenly, he saw a wonderful woman walking ahead of him. She was a lady of great beauty.

She frequently looked behind herself, smiling at him, as if to make sure that he was following her. Soon, she entered the gate of an enclosure. A moment later Bag heard a terrible noise of beatings, shouts, and screams, and of things falling down in confusion. Bag battered the door but, in spite of his great strength, it took him some while to lift it out of its hinges.

Inside the enclosure he saw a well-planted garden surrounding a lovely cottage. Alas! Scattered in the garden and in the house he found a dozen bodies. Their fine clothes indicated that they had been wealthy people but their bruises showed that they had come to a merciless end.

Bag decided at once that these good people in this lonely house needed a decent burial, so he dug a dozen graves with a spade that he found in a shed and buried the sad bodies, having wrapped them properly in the white sheets which he found in plentiful supply in the linen room. Finally, at the back of the house, he found a thirteenth body, that of the beautiful lady. She had apparently attempted to flee from the massacre, but the murderers had caught up with her and beaten her down.