Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/154

 the horse happened to stand still, and the king was immediately distracted with bewilderment, as the great forest made it impossible for him to know whereabouts he was. Seeing no other way out of his difficulties, the king, who knew what the horse had been in a former birth, got down from his saddle, and prostrating himself before the excellent horse, said to him: " Thou art a god; a creature like thee should not commit treason against his lord; so I look upon thee as my protector, take me by a pleasant path." When the horse heard that, he was full of regret, remembering his former birth, and mentally acceded to the king's request, for excellent horses are divine beings. Then the king mounted again, and the horse set out by a road bordered with clear cool lakes, that took away the fatigue of the journey; and by evening the splendid horse had taken the king another hundred yojanas and brought him near Ujjayiní. As the sun beholding his horses, though seven in number, excelled by this courser's speed, had sunk, as it were through shame, into the ravines of the western mountain, and as the darkness was diffused abroad, the wise horse seeing that the gates of Ujjayiní were closed, and that the burning-place outside the gates was terrible at that time, carried the king for shelter to a concealed monastery of Bráhmans, that was situated in a lonely place outside the walls. And the king Ádityasena seeing that that monastery was a fit place to spend the night in, as his horse was tired, attempted to enter it. But the Bráhmans, who dwelt there, opposed his entrance, saying that he must be some keeper of a cemetery* or some thief. And out they poured in quarrelsome mood, with savage gestures, for Bráhmans who live by chanting the Sáma Veda, are the home of timidity, boorishness, and ill-temper. While they were clamouring, a virtuous Bráhman named Vidúshaka, the bravest of the brave, came out from that monastery. He was a young man distinguished for strength of arm, who had propitiated the fire by his austerities, and obtained a splendid sword from that divinity, which he had only to think of, and it came to him. That resolute youth Vidúshaka seeing that king of distinguished bearing, who had arrived by night, thought to himself that he was some god in disguise. And the well-disposed youth pushed away all those other Bráhmans, and bowing humbly before the king, caused him to enter the monastery. And when he had rested, and had the dust of the journey washed off by female slaves, Vidúshaka prepared for him suitable, food. And he took the saddle off that excellent horse of his, and relieved its fatigue by giving it grass and other fodder. And after he had made a bed for the wearied king, lie said to him,— "My lord, I will guard your person, so sleep in peace"— and while the king slept, that Bráhman kept watch the whole night at the door with the sword of the Fire god in his hand, that came to him on his thinking of it.