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O magnanimous one, where is the use of this fruitless perseverance? Never will Śankhachúda sully the family honour of Śankhapála, which is white as a shell. If we are indeed objects worthy of thy pity, then let some expedient be devised, so that this woman may not quit life, overcome by my calamity.

What can possibly be devised? She who dies in your death and lives only in your life,—if you wish her to live, save yourself by my life. This is the only remedy, so give me quickly the badge of death, that, having disguised myself in it, I may mount the execution rock. And do you, thinking of your mother before all, retire from your post. Probably your mother, if she stood in view of the place of execution, would abandon life. Do you not see the great cemetery, filled with many skeletons of the ill-fated Nágas? See here, rows upon rows of the crests of the slain Nágas, coated thick with oozing brains, splash as they fall from the jaws of the jackalls into the stream of carrion-smelling gore, while the scene is shrouded in awful darkness by the flapping wings of the vultures, their greed increased by the gobbets of raw flesh which fall mangled from their chattering beaks!

How should I not see? This cemetery, which affords delight to Garuda, with a snake for his daily food, is