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32 thunderstruck. With a loud shriek she fell into a swoon. Her parents hurried to her, and it did not take them long to see what had happened. On inquiry, they learnt from her the full details of the case, and the prime minister hastened to the court with the information. He received the sincerest sympathy at having been so mercilessly robbed, and the kotál was at once summoned, apprised of the affairs of the past night, and commanded to exercise great vigilance, so that similar cases might not occur in future.

The four friends were by no means cowards, and especially desired to make a prey of people prepared to oppose them. One of them, therefore, on the morning following the above incidents, called at the court in the disguise of an astrologer, and after the set form of speech peculiar to professors of astrology, said, "O Incarnation of justice! Four dangerous men have entered your majesty's kingdom with the intention of committing mischief. Last night one of them robbed His Excellency the Prime Minister. To-day again, one of them will try to make the chief merchant, Sadágar Maháshai, his victim. I reveal this secret so that your majesty may take means to thwart the wicked man's purpose."

The king dismissed the fictitious astrologer with rich presents, and called on the kotál to keep a special guard round the merchant's house. The whole city was awake, and sentinels paraded the streets, lanes and by-lanes. The prospective hero of the night, the merchant's son, whom we have referred to at the beginning of our story, was in the meantime making preparations to carry out his scheme of robbing the chief merchant in the city. Having ascertained that this man's old mother was a devoted worshipper of the god Shiva, to whom she had built a temple in the most unfrequented part of her son's extensive property, and whom she worshipped there every evening, he intended impersonating the god, and thus robbing her of everything valuable that she had amassed during her past life. A bull was secured, for the god was believed to ride only on an animal of this species, and