Hanuman waits until the flames have taken a good hold on the materials around him and then leaps over the courtiers and into the palace.  He flies from chamber to chamber, stopping briefly here and there to start a blaze before moving on, the demons always one move behind and hampered in their efforts to capture the monkey by their attempts to quench the fires he has started.  Within a matter of minutes the whole palace is ablaze, so Hanuman turns his attention to the city.  Soon Longka is a sea of flame.

Well satisfied with his work, Hanuman flies over to the sea and plunges in.  When he emerges he is pleased to see that the flames are extinguished, all that is except those licking at the end of his tail.  He plunges it into the water again and again, but still it burns.  Desperate, he flies to the but of the hermit Nart, throwing himself prostrate before him and begging breathlessly to be told how to put out the fire.

The hermit looks at him sourly.  "You're clever enough to set fire to Longka and fill the island with pestilential smoke.  How is it you can't help yourself?" he asks.

"This is no ordinary fire," says Hanuman.  "It was started by Totsagan's diamond spear."  "If that's the ease," says the hermit, "you can soon put it right."

"Listen hard and I will tell

How you can quench your fiery tail. Take its end and without fail

Place it in the little well."

Hanuman understands immediately.  He sticks his burning tail in his mouth and pinches his nostrils.  The flame goes out at once.  Hanuman throws himself gratefully before the hermit once more, thanks him, and then flies back over the ocean to his waiting companions, and then on to Phra Ram's camp.