A Jewish merchant had sold his wares in a distant land at great profit. As he prepared to travel home with the caravan, a stranger attached himself to the group. The stranger watched the merchant count his coins. He watched him guard his bags. When the caravan stopped to rest at the end of a long day, the stranger persuaded the merchant to linger behind a little, just a mile or two, while the rest of the company pressed ahead.
When they were alone, the stranger drew a knife, took everything the merchant had, and prepared to kill him. The merchant begged for his life. The stranger shook his head. "If I let you live, you will go to the authorities."
As the merchant was dying, his eyes fell on a bird perched in a tree above the road. With his last breath he whispered, "This bird will bear witness against you." The stranger laughed and left him for dead.
Years passed. The thief moved to a great city, invested his stolen fortune wisely, and became wealthy enough to be invited into the court of the king. One day a royal hunter killed a rare bird and had it brought to the king's table. When the covered dish was opened, the thief looked down and recognized — absurdly, impossibly — the very bird from the tree above the road. The absurdity of the coincidence broke him. He began to laugh. He could not stop.
The king demanded an explanation. The thief, unable to compose himself, confessed everything. The king ordered him hanged and returned all his property to the murdered merchant's family.
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 431, ends there. Jewish law says that two witnesses are needed to convict. The Torah does not specify what kind. A dying man can call a bird. A bird can keep an appointment for years. And Heaven, which keeps accounts we do not track, will present the bill.