Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/50

 act on my advice, if you repose any confidence in me. There is in a lonely place a translucent lake, it is unknown to the fishermen of these parts; I will take you there one by one, and drop you into it, that you may live there." When those foolish fish heard that, they said in their fear " Do so, we all repose confidence in you." Then the treacherous crane took the fish away one by one,- and, putting them down on a rock, devoured in this way many of them.

Then a certain makara dwelling in that lake, seeing him carrying off fish, said:— " Whither are you taking the fish ?" Then that crane said to him exactly what he had said to the fish. The makara,* being terrified, said— " Take me there too." The crane's intellect was blinded with the smell of his flesh, so he took him up, and soaring aloft carried him towards the slab of rock. But when the makara got near the rock, he saw the fragments of the bones of the fish that the crane had eaten, and he perceived that the crane was in the habit of devouring those who reposed confidence in him. So no sooner was the sagacious makara put down on the rock, than with complete presence of mind he cut off the head of the crane. And he returned and told the occurrence, exactly as it happened, to the other fish, and they were delighted, and hailed him as their deliverer from death. " Prudence indeed is power, so what has a man, devoid of prudence, to do with power? Hear this other story of the lion and the hare."

There was in a certain forest a Story of the lion and the hare.† :— There was in a certain forest a lion, who was invincible, and sole champion of it, and whatever creature he saw in it, he killed. Then all the animals, deer and all, met and deliberated together, and the^ made the following petition to that king of beasts— " Why by killing us all at once do you ruin your own interests ? We will send you one animal every day for your dinner." When the lion heard this, he consented to their proposal, and as he was in the habit of eating one animal every day, it happened that it was one day the lot of a hare to present himself to be eaten. The hare was sent off by the united animals, but on the way the wise creature reflected—