Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/399

 those Śavaras bound them, and took them and threw them into prison. The prison was full of multitudes of vermin, filthy with cobwebs, and it was evident that snakes frequented it, as they had dropped there the skins that clung to their throats. The dust in it rose as high as the ancle,* it was honeycombed with the holes and galleries of mice, and full of many terrified and miserable men that had been thrown into it. In that place, which seemed the very birthplace of hells, they saw those two ministers Bhímabhuja and Vikramaśakti, who, like themselves, had entered that wilderness after escaping from the sea, in order to look for their master, and had been already bound and thrown into prison. They recognised the prince and fell weeping at his feet, and he recognised them, and embraced them, bathed in tears.

Then their woes were increased a hundredfold by seeing one another; but the other prisoners there said to them, in order to console them, " Enough of grief ! Can we avoid the effect of acts done in a previous state of existence? Do you not see that the death of all of us together is imminent? For we have been collected here by this king of the Pulindas, in order that he may offer us up to Durgá on the coming fourteenth day of the month. So why should you grieve? The way of Fate, that sports with living beings, is strange; as she has given you misfortune, she may in the same way give you prosperity." When the other prisoners had said this to them, they remained there bound with them; it is terrible to see how little respect calamities shew even for the great. And when the fourteenth day arrived, they were all taken thence by the orders of the king to the temple of Durgá to be sacrificed. It seemed like the mouth of death, the flame of the lamp being its lolling tongue, the range of bells being its row of teeth, to which the heads of men clung.† Then Sundarasena, when he saw that goddess, bowed before her, and praised her with mind humbled by devotion, and uttered this prayer, " thou goddess that didst quell the oppression of the Asuras with thy blood- streaming trident, which mangled haughty Daityas, thou that givest security to thy votaries, look upon me, goddess, that am burned up with the forest- fire of grief, with a favourable nectar- shedding eye, and refresh me. Honour to thee !"

While the prince was saying this, Vindhyaketu, that king of the Pulindas, came there to worship the goddess Durgá. The moment the prince saw the king of^the Bhillas, he recognised him, and being bowed down with shame, said of his own accord to his friends, " Ha ! this is that very Vindhyaketu, the chief of the Pulindas, who comes to my father's court to