Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/557

 And after he had crossed the sea, he travelled with a caravan, and one day, at evening time, he reached a wood. The caravan encamped in the wood for the night, and while Samudraśúra was awake, a powerful host of bandits attacked it. While the bandits were massacring the members of the caravan, Samudraśúra left his wares and fled, and climbed up a banyan-tree without being discovered. The host of bandits departed, after they had carried off all the wealth, and the merchant spent that night there, perplexed with fear, and distracted with grief. In the morning he cast his eye towards the top of the tree, and saw, as fate would have it, what looked like the light of a lamp, trembling among the leaves. And in his astonishment he climbed up the tree, and saw a kite's nest, in which there was a heap of glittering priceless jewelled ornaments. He took them all out of it, and found among the ornaments that necklace, which he had found in Svarnadvípa and the kite had carried off. He obtained from that nest unlimited wealth, and, descending from the tree, he went off delighted, and reached in course of time his own city of Harshapura. There the merchant Samudraśúra remained, enjoying himself to his heart's content with his family, free from the desire of any other wealth.

" So you have that merchant's whelming in the sea, and that loss of his wealth, and the finding of the necklace, and again the losing of it, and his undeserved degradation to the position of a malefactor, and his immediate obtaining of wealth from the satisfied king, and his return-voyage over the sea, and his being stripped of all his wealth by falling in with bandits on the journey, and at last his acquisition of wealth from the top of a tree. So you see, prince, such is the various working of destiny, but a virtuous man, though he may have endured sorrow, obtains joy at the last." When Naraváhanadatta heard this from Gomukha, he approved it, and rising up, he performed his daily duties, such as bathing and the like.

And the next day, when he was in the hall of assembly, the heroic prince Samaratunga, who had been his servant ever since he was a boy, came and said to him— " Prince, my relation Sangrámarvarsha has ravaged my territory, with the help of his four sons, Vírajita and the others. So I will go myself, and bring them all five here as prisoners. Let my lord know this." After saying this he departed. And the son of the king of Vatsa, knowing that he had but a small force, and that those others had large forces, ordered his own army to follow him. But that proud man refused to receive this accession to his force, and went and conquered those five enemies in fight by the help of his own two arms only, and brought them back prisoners. Naraváhanadatta honoured and praised his follower, when he came back victorious, and said— " How wonderful ! This man has conquered his five enemies, though with their forces they had overrun his