Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/245

 of the sea?" While the heroic Satyavrata was saying this, the ship drew near the tree; at that moment Śaktideva made a leap in his terror, and caught a broad branch of that marine banyan-tree,* but Satyavrata's body and ship, which he offered for another, were swept down into the whirlpool, and he entered the mouth of the submarine fire. But Śaktideva, though he had escaped to the bough of that tree, which filled the regions with its branches, was full of despair and reflected— " I have not beheld that Golden City, and I am perishing in an uninhabited place, moreover I have also brought about the death of that king of the fishermen. Or rather who can resist the awful goddess of Destiny, that ever places her foot upon the heads of all men? † While the Bráhman youth was thus revolving thoughts suited to the occasion on the trunk of the tree, the day came to an end. And in the evening he saw many enormous birds, of the nature of vultures, coming into that banyan-tree from all quarters, filling the sides of heaven with their cries, and the waves of the sea, that was lashed by the wind of their broad wings, appeared as if running to meet them out of affection produced by long acquaintance.

Then he, concealed by the dense leaves, overheard the conversation of those birds perched on the branches, which was carried on in human language. One described some distant island, another a mountain, another a distant region as the place where he had gone to roam during the day, but an old bird among them said, " I went to-day to the Golden City to disport myself, and to-morrow morning I shall go there again to feed at my ease, for what is the use of my taking a long and fatiguing journey?" Śaktideva's sorrow was removed by that speech of the bird's, which resembled a sudden shower of nectar, and he thought to himself, " Bravo ! that city does exist, and now I have an instrument for reaching it, this gigantic bird given me as a means of conveyance." Thinking thus, Śaktideva slowly advanced and hid himself among the back-feathers of that bird while it was asleep, and next morning, when the other birds went off in different directions, that vulture exhibiting a strange partiality to the Brahman like destiny. ‡ carrying Śaktideva unseen on his back where he had climbed up, went immediately to the Golden City to feed again.§ Then the bird alighted in