Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/169

 And so great was the power of the veracity of the Great Being, so great also the splendour of his merit, that the current and the wind changed to the opposite direction and made the vessel go back. The merchants beholding the ship go back, exulted with the highest admiration and joy, and expressing their veneration to Supâraga by reverential bows, told him that the ship went back. Then the Great Being instructed them to be calm and to hoist the sails quickly. And being thus ordered, they who had the charge of that work, having regained by their gladness their ability and energy, did as he had said.

32. Then, resplendent with the lovely outspread wings of her white sails, and filled with the sound of her merry and laughing crew, the ship flew over the sea, like a flamingo in the pure and cloudless sky.

Now while the ship, favoured by both current and wind, returned with as much ease as the heavenly cars move through the air, and was flying, so to speak, at her will, at that time of the day, when the gathering darkness extends far and wide, and the sky, no more adorned by the dimming glow of the twilight, begins to make the ornaments of its constellations appear on the firmament, where still a faint remnant of light is left, in that moment, then, of the commencement of the rule of Night, Supâraga addressed the merchants in these terms: 'Well, traders, while crossing the Nalamâlin sea and the others, you must draw up sand and stones from the bottom of the seas and charge your ship with as much as she can contain. By this practice she will keep her sides firm, if assailed by a violent hurricane; besides, that sand and gravel being pronounced to be auspicious, will doubtless tend to your profit and gain.' And the merchants, being shown the fit places all along by the deities, who did so out of affection and veneration for Supâraga, drew up from thence what they meant to be sand and stones, and loaded their ship with that