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 possess greater power even than she did. And to-day you saw me just at the time when I had performed ceremonies to ensure your welfare, and was endeavouring to attract by a spell a man to offer as a victim. So do you enter now into our practice, and set your foot on the head of all kings, conquering them by magic power. When he heard this proposal, the king at first rejected it, saying, " What propriety is there in a king's connecting himself with the eating of human flesh, the practice of witches?" But when the queen was bent on committing suicide, he consented, for how can men who are attracted by the objects of passion remain in the good path? Then she made him enter into the circle previously consecrated, and said to the king, after he had taken an oath; " I attempted to draw hither as a victim. that Bráhman named Phalabhúti, who is so intimate with you, but the drawing him hither is a difficult task, so it is the best way to initiate some cook in our rites, that he may himself slay him and cook him. And you must'not feel any compunction about it, because by eating a sacrificial offering of his flesh, after the ceremonies are complete, the enchantment will be perfect, for he is a Bráhman of the highest caste." When his beloved said this to him, the king, though afraid of the sin, a second time consented. Alas ! terrible is compliance with women ! Then that royal couple had the cook summoned, whose name was Sáhasika, and after encouraging him, and initiating him, they both said to him,— " Whoever comes to you to-morrow morning and says— ' The king and queen will eat together to-day, so get some food ready quickly,' him you must slay, and make for us secretly a savoury dish of his flesh." When the cook heard this, he consented, and went to his own house. And the next morning, when Phalabhúti arrived, the king said to him, " Go and tell the cook Sáhasika in the kitchen, ' the king together with the queen will eat to-day a savoury mess, therefore prepare as soon as possible a splendid dish.' " Phalabhúti said, " I will do so" and went out. When he was outside, the prince whose name was Chandraprabha, came to him, and said— " Have made for me this very day with this gold a pair of earrings, like those you had made before for my noble father." When the prince said this, Phalabhúti, in order to please him, went that moment, as he was commissioned, to get the earrings made, and the prince readily went with the king's message, which Phalabhúti told him, alone to the kitchen; when he got there and told the king's message, the rook Sáhasika, true to his agreement, immediately killed him with a knife, and made a dish of his flesh, which the king and queen, after performing their ceremonies, ate, not knowing the truth;*<ref* This incident reminds one of Schiller's ballad— Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer.(Benfey Panchatantra Vol. I, p.320) The story of Fridolin in Schiller's ballad is identical with the story of Fulgentius which is found in the English Gesta Romanorum, see Bohn's Gesta Romanorum, In- and after spending that night in