One day it chanced that she went to the house where Kora lived to sell her wares and they asked her why it was that she kept her arm covered; she told them that she had a sore on it; they wanted to see how big the sore was, but she refused to show it, saying that if she showed it she would die.  They laughed at such a ridiculous story and at last forced her to show her arm, which of course was quite well; but they at once recognised the bracelet and asked where she had got it from.  The Mahuli girl refused to tell them and said that if she did, she would die.  “What a foolish girl you are” they objected “first you say you will die if you show us your arm and then if you tell us where you got this bracelet from; it belonged to our daughter whom we have lost, and so you must tell us!  Come, we will give you a basket full of rice if you tell us.”  The Mahuli girl could not resist this offer, and when the basket of rice was produced, she told them where the palm tree was, in which Kora’s sister was hiding.  In all haste the father and mother went to the tree and found that it was much too high for them to climb:  so they begged their daughter to come down and promised not to marry her to her brother; but she would not come down:  then they sang:—­

    “You have made a palm tree from the scrapings of your skin
    And have climbed up into it, daughter! 
        Come daughter, come down.”

But she only answered:—­

    “Father and mother, why do you cry? 
    I must spend my life here: 
    “Do you return home.”

So they went home in despair.

Then her sisters-in-law came in their turn and sang:—­

    “Palm tree, palm tree, give us back our sister: 
    The brother and sister have got to be married.”

But she would not answer them nor come down from the tree, so they had to go home without her.

Then all her other relations came and besought her to come down, but she would not listen to them.  So they went away and invoked a storm to come to their aid.  And a storm arose and cold rain fell, till the girl in the palm tree was soaked and shivering, and the wind blew and swayed the palm tree so that its top kept touching the ground.  At last she could bear the cold and wet no more and, seizing an opportunity when the tree touched the ground, she slipped off.  Her relations had made all the villagers promise on no account to let her into their houses; so when she went into the village and called out at house after house no one answered her or opened to her.  Then she went to her own home and there also they refused to open to her.

But Kora had lit a big fire in the cow house and sat by it warming himself, knowing that the girl would have to come to him; and as she could find no shelter elsewhere she had to go to his fire, and then she sat and warmed herself and thought “I fled for fear of this man and now I have come back to him; this is the end, I can no longer stay in this world; the people will not even let me into their houses.  I have no wish to see them again.”