all together to Brahma the Creator, and spoke before him of the fierceness of Kadru's anger against these dear children, the Snake-folk, and begged him in some way to soften her fearful spell. And Brahma granted them that the cruel and poisonous serpents alone should be consumed, while the others, gentle and playful and affectionate, should escape. And then very softly, so that one little snake alone was able to hear, having crept up to lie near the feet of the Creator, he whispered, as if to himself, a promise of redemption. In the lapse of ages, he said, a maiden should be born of the Naga race, who should wed with the holiest of mortal men. And of this marriage should be born in due course a son, Astika, whose love from his birth should be all with his mother's people, and he should defeat the doom that lay upon them.
Now when this promise was published abroad in the realms of Takshaka, that whole world was greatly comforted; and patiently, and yet sorrowfully, waited the Snake-folk, age after age. For they knew that their curse was terrible, yet that it was provided in the counsels of the Creator that when their terror should be at its greatest, Astika the Redeemer also should be ready, and should arise to bid their sufferings cease.
