Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/597

 appointed to it, and how he himself was to blame, ad then, after giving him her ornaments, she entered into an image on the front of a pillar in the temple in Nágapura. Thințhákarála for his part, smitten with the poison of separation from her, could neither hear nor see, but rolled swooning on the ground. And when that gambler came to his senses, he uttered this lament, " Alas ! fool that I was, I revealed the secret, though I knew better all the time; for how can people like myself, who are by nature thoughtless, shew self- restraint? So now this intolerable separation has fallen to my lot." However in a moment he said to himself, " This is no time for me to despond; why should I not recover firmness and strive to put an end to her curse?"

After going through these reflections, the cunning fellow thought carefully over the matter, and asuming the dress of a mendicant devotee, went with rosary, antelope-skin, and matted hair, to Nágapura. There he secretly buried in a forest outside the city, four pitchers containing his wife's ornaments, one towards each of the cardinal points; and one full of sets of the five precious things* he deliberately buried within the city, in the earth of the market-place, in front of the god himself.

When he had done this, he built a hut on the bank of the river, and remained there, affecting a hypocritical asceticism, pretending to be meditating and muttering. And by bathing three times in the day, and eating only the food given him as alms, after washing it with water on a stone, he acquired the character of a very holy man.

In course of time his fame reached the ears of the king, and the king often invited him, but he never went near him: so the king came to see him, and remained a long time in conversation with him. And in the evening, when the king was preparing to depart, a female jackal suddenly uttered a yell at a distance. When the cunning gambler, who was passing himself off as an ascetic, heard that, he laughed. And when the king asked him the meaning of the laugh, he said, " Oh ! never mind." But when the king went on persistently questioning him, the deceitful fellow said, " In the forest to the east of this city, under a ratan, there is a pitcher full of jewelled ornaments; so take it. This, king, is what that female jackal told me, for I understand the language of animals."

Then the king was full of curiosity: so the ascetic took him to the spot, and dug up the earth, and took out that pitcher, and gave it to him. Then the king, having obtained the ornaments, began to have faith in the ascetic, and considered that he not only possessed supernatural knowledge