Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/298

82 "Oh, yes! They call the Sun, and the Moon, Gods," was the reply.

"You don't know what is of divine nature," said he, and carrying him off down into the water, he put him fast in his cave.

But the Bodisat, when he found that he was so long in coming, sent the Moon Prince. Him, too, the demon seized and asked him as before:

"Do you know what is of divine nature?"

"Yes, I do. The far-spreading sky is called divine."

"You then don't know what is divine," said he; and he took him, too, and put him in the same place.

When he too delayed, the Bodisat thought to himself, "Some accident must have happened." He himself, therefore, went to the place, and saw the marks of the footsteps where both the boys had gone down into the water. Then he knew that the pond must be haunted by a water-sprite; and he stood fast, with his sword girded on, and his bow in his hand.

But when the demon saw that the Bodisat was not going down into the water, he took to himself the form of a woodman, and said to the Bodisat:

"Hallo, my friend! you seem tired with your journey. Why don't you get down into the lake there; and have a bath, and drink, and eat the edible stalks of the lotus plants, and pick the flowers, and so go on your way at your ease?"

And as soon as the Bodisat saw him, he knew that he was the demon, and he said,

"It is you who have seized my brothers!"

"Yes, it is I," said he.