gradually assumed the form of a big snake, and went about the room hissing. Attracted by the sound, the king approached where it was with its hood erect, and carefully aimed such a blow that he at once severed its head from its body. This was the snake Shutashankha, Dalimkumar's inveterate enemy, and the queen, when a girl in her father's house, had given it admission into her body through the fruit which she had one day eaten there, and in which it had remained asleep.
The snake being killed, Dalimkumar's sight was restored; and when he showed himself alive the next morning the whole city was filled with shouts of joy. When the dead snake was being burnt, out came the Rakkhashi's letter, and on reading it, Dalim came to know who the wretched woman impersonating his mother was, and what had been the nature of the plot against him. He learnt, too, the whereabouts of his half-brothers; and, after the honeymoon, he started for Pashabutty's kingdom. On reaching it he was challenged to a game at dice, under the usual conditions. He accepted the challenge, and while playing, detected that a small mouse crept out of the lap of his rival, got under the dice, and turned them in favour of its mistress. On some plausible pretext, he got up from the gaming table, promising to take up the game the next day. He kept his promise, and having secured a kitten, hid it under his dress. The mouse did not venture to creep out, and he won the game. Finding Pashabutty and her sisters at his mercy according to the conditions under which the game had been played, he cast a scornful look upon them, and held before them the letter which their sister, from his father's palace, had written to them, but which had by a lucky coincidence fallen into his hands. He recognized the dice to be the same as those he had once parted with. The sisters were greatly dismayed, and shrank into the forms of creeping worms. The charm hanging over their house was dispelled, and the seven princes and their horses started into view, as if disgorged by the earth. Dalim's horse, too, which had been turned into stone at the
