200
vilakku to sleep with her. She disclosed the whole matter of her husband's complaint to her father, to her serpent-lord^ and consulted him as to how she should behave herself the next morning. The serpent-lord smiling, thus replied: "Now Las come the good time fur you. When you stand before your father to-morrow mornings a council will have met there already to enquire into your conduct. When they question you as to the cause of your pregnancy, you had better without any fear give out the name of your husband. If they doubt it, proclaim before the assembly that you have become pregnant through your husband and by your husband alone, and that if this fact is doubted by your husband and father, you will be ready to undergo the hardest ordeal of taking out a flower-pagoda from a pot containing a serpent in it, after bathing and dressing yourself as befitting the serpent-ordeal occasion. I shall be the serpent that shall be in the pot to-morrow, and when you plunge your hand boldly into it, for the flower-pagoda shall do you no harm." Thus instructing the serpent-prince went away that morning a little early to prepare himself for the pot.
The morning dawned. An assembly of the nobles of the town had already gathered in the palace to inquire into Kuttuvilakku's conduct. Her husband and her father sat there with their faces hanging down at the certain guilt which
