Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/641

 and saw myself on a heap of cotton, without a bedstead, I was at once filled with mixed feelings of shame, amusement and astonishment.

Then, king, I went at my leisure to the market-place, and roaming about, I saw that boy there selling the bedstead. So I went up to him and said, " For what price will you give me this bedstead? " Then the boy said to me, " You cannot get the bedstead for money, crest-jewel of cunning ones; but you may get it by telling some strange and wonderful story." When I heard that, I said to him, " Then I will tell you a marvellous tale. And if you understand it and admit that it is really true, you may keep the bedstead; but if you say that it is not true and that you do not believe it,* you will be illegitimate, and I shall get back the bedstead. On this condition I agree to tell you a marvel; and now listen ! Formerly there was a famine in the kingdom of a certain king; that king himself cultivated the back of the beloved of the boar with great loads of spray from the chariots of the snakes. Enriched with the grain thus produced the king put a stop to the famine among his subjects, and gained the esteem of men."

When I said this, the boy laughed and said, " The chariots of the snakes are clouds; the beloved of the boar is the earth, for she is said to have been most dear to Vishnu in his Boar incarnation; and what is there to be astonished at in the fact that rain from the clouds made grain to spring on the earth?"

When the cunning boy had said this, he went on to say to me, who was astonished at his cleverness, " Now I will tell you a strange tale. If you understand it, and admit that it is really true, I will give you back this bedstead, otherwise you shall be my slave."

I answered " Agreed; " and then the cunning boy said this, " Prince of knowing ones, there was born long ago on this earth a wonderful boy, who, as soon as he was born, made the earth tremble with the weight of his feet, and when he grew bigger, stepped into another world."

When the boy said this, I, not knowing what he meant, answered him, " It is false ; there is not a word of truth in it." Then the boy said to me, " Did not Vishnu, as soon as he was born, stride across the earth, in the form of a dwarf, and make it tremble? And did he not, on that same occasion, grow bigger, and step into heaven? So you have been conquered by me, and reduced to slavery. And these people present in the market are witnesses to our agreement. So, wherever I go, you must come along with me." When the resolute boy bad said this, he