Page:The Dravidian Nights Entertainments.djvu/146

 Jagatalapratâpa remained that night there, and addressed to each of the reply letters one or two sentences. These conveyed to the inhabitants of Visvarañjitanagara a consoling information of what happiness the dead persons were enjoying in the other world, and how they would like to have the company of their living relatives for a day or two, and how they would be enriched by their coming there.

On the morning of the ninth day the whole town assembled round the pit to see Jagatalapratâpa bring the replies. The king and the minister also were there. Some thought that Jagatalapratâpa might return as he on two former occasions successfully did after attempting the impossibilities of bringing in serpent poison and whale fat. Some thought that he must have died the previous evening. While they were thus speaking, the fire in the middle of the pit opened wide and through it there came out the man—Jagatalapratâpa himself, bearing on both his shoulders big bundles of palm leaf rolls. Not a hair of his body was injured. He wore over him most costly jewels, being the presents of his father-in-law, Agnibhagavân. He was not in the ordinary dress with which he jumped, but in a bridegroom's dress. To every one that gave him a letter he now returned a reply. "Are they all in such gooodgood [sic] condition. If we go there, are we  to meet them and return rich?" These an