Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/43

 that, and was taken by the handmaids into a secret dark inner apartment. There they took off his under-garments and his jewels, and gave him by way of an under-garment a single piece of rag, and they smeared the i from head to foot with a thick coating of that lamp-black and oil, pretending it was an unguent, without his detecting it. While they continued rubbing it into every limb, the second watch of the night came and the chaplain arrived, the handmaids thereupon said to the minister,— " here is the king's chaplain come, a great friend of Vararuchi's, so creep into this box"— and they bundled him into the trunk, just as he was, all naked, with the utmost precipitation: and then they fastened it outside with a bolt. The priest too was brought inside into the dark room on the pretence of a bath, and was in the same way stripped of his garments and ornaments, and made a fool of by the handmaids by being rubbed with lamp-black and oil, with nothing but the piece of rag on him, until in the third watch the chief magistrate arrived. The handmaids immediately terrified the priest with the news of his arrival, and pushed him into the trunk like his predecessor. After they had bolted him in, they brought in the magistrate on the pretext of giving him a bath, and so he, like his fellows, with the piece of rag for his only garment, was bamboozled by being continually anointed with lamp-black, until in the last watch of the night the merchant arrived. The handmaids made use of his arrival to alarm the magistrate and bundled him also into the trunk, and fastened it on the outside. So those three being shut up inside the box, as if they were bent on accustoming themselves to live in the hell of blind darkness, did not dare to speak on account of fear, though they touched one another. Then Upakośá brought a lamp into the room, and making the merchant enter it, said to him, " give me that money which my husband deposited with you." When he heard that, the rascal said, observing that the room was empty, " I told you that I would give you the money your husband deposited with me." Upakośá calling the attention of the people in the trunk, said— " Hear, O ye gods this speech of Hiranyagupta." When she had said this, she blew out the light, and the merchant, like the others, on the pretext of a bath was anointed by the handmaids for a long time with lamp-black. Then they told him to go, for the darkness was over, and at the close of the night they took him by the neck and pushed him out of the door sorely against his will. Then he made the best of his way home, with only the piece of rag to cover his nakedness, and smeared with the black dye, with the dogs biting him at every step, thoroughly ashamed of himself, and at last reached his own house; and when he got there he did not dare to look his slaves in the face while they were washing off that black dye. The path of vice is in- deed a painful one. In the early morning Upakośá accompanied by her handmaids went, without informing her parents, to the palace of king