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he is especially angry with you at present, now that this misfortune has happened. So if you feel disposed to save your own life, and to preserve glory, and justice inviolate, if you have any regard for the future, if you consider us well disposed towards you; leave this place unobserved this very evening, as soon as the sun has set, and make for the palace of your maternal grandfather, and may good fortune attend you. This is the message they gave me for you, and they sent you this casket full of precious jewels and gold; receive it from my hand." When the wise Bhímabhața heard this message, he accepted it, saying, " I consent to act thus," and he took that casket of gold and valuable jewels. And he gave him an appropriate message to take back, and then dismissed him, and mounted that horse, sword in hand. And Śankhadatta took some gold and jewels; and mounted another horse. And then prince Bhímabhata set out with him, and after he had gone a long distance, he reached at dead of night a great thicket of reeds that lay in his way. As he and his companion pursued their course through it without stopping, a couple of lions, roused by the noise, which the reeds made when trampled by the horses' hoofs, rushed out roaring, with their cubs, and began to rip up the bellies of the horses with their claws. And immediately the hero and his companion cut off the limbs of the lions with their swords, and killed them. Then he got down with his friend to look at the state of the two horses, but as their entrails were torn out, they immediately fell down dead. When Bhímabhața saw that, he felt despondent, and he said to Śankhadatta, " Friend, by a great effort we have escaped from our hostile relatives. Tell me, where, even by a hundred efforts, shall we find an escape from Fate, who has now smitten us even here, not allowing us even to retain our horses. The very horse, for which I abandoned my native land, is dead ; so how can we travel on foot through this forest at night?" When he said this, his friend Śankhadatta answered him, " It is no new thing for hostile Fate to conquer courage. This is its nature, but it is conquered by firm endurance. What can Fate do against a firm unshaken man, any more than the wind against a mountain? So come, let us mount upon the horse of endurance and so plod on here." When Śankhadatta said this, Bhímabhața set out with him. Then they slowly crossed that thicket, wounding their feet with the canes, and at last the night came to an end. And the sun, the lamp of the world, arose, dispelling the darkness of night, and the lotus-flowers in the lotus-clumps, by the side of their path, with their expanding cups and the sweet murmur of their bees, seemed to be looking at one another and saying, " It is a happy thing that this Bhímabhața has crossed this thicket full of lions and other dangerous animals." So travelling on, he at last reached with his friend the sandy shore of the Ganges, dotted with
the huts of hermits. There he drank its sweet waters, which seemed to be
