Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/384

268 him by himself to the front cart. Then he took his seat on the pole, raised his goad aloft, and called out, "Gee up! you brute!! Drag 'em along! you wretch!!"

The Bodisat said to himself, "He addresses me as a wretch. I am no wretch!" And keeping his four legs as firm as so many posts, he stood perfectly still.

Then the squire that moment claimed his bet, and made the Brāhman hand over the thousand pieces. And the Brāhman, minus his thousand, took out his ox, went home to his house, and lay down overwhelmed with grief.

Presently Nanda Visāla, who was roaming about the place, came up and saw the Brāhman grieving there, and said to him,

"What, Brāhman! are you asleep?"

"Sleep! How can I sleep after losing the thousand pieces?"

"Brāhman! I've lived so long in your house, and have I ever broken any pots, or rubbed up against the walls, or made messes about?"

"Never, my dear!"

"Then why did you call me a wretch? It's your fault. It's not my fault. Go now, and bet him two thousand, and never call me a wretch again — I, who am no wretch at all!"

When the Brāhman heard what he said, he made the bet two thousand, tied the carts together as before, decked out Nandi Visāla, and yoked him to the foremost cart.

He managed this in the following way: he tied the pole and the cross-piece fast together; yoked Nandi Visāla on one side; on the other he fixed a smooth piece of timber from the point of the yoke to the axle-end, and