Page:Stories of India's Gods & Heroes.djvu/45

Rh these; of what thou takest, such a part is for me, and such a part will be thy reward."

Who shall tell the horrors of a great Hindu burning-ground? None, at any rate, can describe the frightful scene more frightfully than do the Hindu legends themselves. For in these, beside the natural horrors of the place—the sights and smells, the heart-rending cries of relatives of the dead, the debased attendants, and dogs, jackals and vultures on their shocking quest—we read of foul and blood-thirsty fiends and imps of every kind thronging the scene of death and holding hellish orgies after their manner.

To this dolorous place came the fallen king, and, with woeful remembrance of the height whence he had fallen, applied himself to the sickening task of collecting the funeral wrappings of the dead, running hither and thither to one and another, reckoning carefully the proper division of his gruesome spoil. So heavy lay the spell of the place and the work upon him, that there and then the poor monarch entered into another birth, and became in deed what he seemed to be. Thus spending a dismal existence he fell one day, foredone with toil, into a deep sleep and dreamed a strange and dreadful dream. He saw himself passing from one sad existence to another; falling from even his present low estate to periods of anguish in various terrific places of torment. He saw himself once more born in his own order, a king again, only to lose his kingdom through dicing, bringing frantic misery on his wife and child. Then again there rang in his ears warnings about the dreaded curse of Viswamitra; and therewith the