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priceless jewel. When the king saw that, he took up the jewel, and asked the treasurer the following question, " Where have you put all those fruits which I have been in the habit of handing over to you, after they were given to me by the mendicant?" When the superintendent of the treasury heard that, he was full of fear, and he said to the king, " I used to throw them into the treasury from the window without opening the door; if your Majesty orders me, I will open it and look for them." When the treasurer said this, the king gave him leave to do so, and he went away, and soon returned, and said to the king " I see that those fruits have all rotted away in the treasury, and I also see that there is a heap of jewels there resplendent with radiant gleams."
When the king heard it, he was pleased, and gave those jewels to the treasurer, and the next day he said to the mendicant, who came as before, " Mendicant, why do you court me every day with great expenditure of wealth? I will not take your fruit to-day until you tell me." When the king said this, the mendicant said to him in private, " I have an incantation to perform which requires the aid of a brave man, I request, hero, that you will assist me in it." When the king heard that, he consented and promised him that he would do so. Then the mendicant was pleased and he went on to say to that king, " Then I shall be waiting for you at night-fall in the approaching black fortnight, in the great cemetery here, under the shade of abanyan-tree, and you must come to me there. The king said— " Well ! I will do so." And the mendicant Kshántiśila returned delighted to his own dwelling.
Then the heroic monarch, as soon as he had got into the black fort- night, remembered the request of the mendicant, which he had promised to accomplish for him, and as soon as night came, he enveloped his head in a black cloth, and left the palace unperceived, sword in hand, and went fearlessly to the cemetery. It was obscured by a dense and terrible pall of darkness, and its aspect was rendered awful by the ghastly flames from the burning of the funeral pyres, and it produced horror by the bones, skeletons, and skulls of men that appeared in it. In it were present formidable Bhútas and Vetálas, joyfully engaged in their horrible activity, and it was alive with the loud yells of jackals,*[1] so that it seemed like a second mysterious tremendous form of Bhairava. And after he had searched about in it, he found that mendicant under a banyan-tree, engaged in making a circle, and he went up to him and said," Here I am arrived, mendicant; tell me, what can I do for you?"
When the mendicant heard that, and saw the king, he was delighted,
- ↑ * Here there is probably a pun. The word translated " jackal" also means the god Śiva. Bhairava is a form of Śiva.
