beasts, and which no one so far had been able to kill. Orders were at length given by the king to Pushpamala, alias Ranjit, to free the country from the pest; and having for several days watched for it, she discovered that it every day visited a tank. She asked the king for three days' leave of absence from the gates, and this being granted, she, with food sufficient for that time, climbed up a tree by the side of the tank, and remained there in expectation of seeing the snake. At the end of the third night it came to the spot to quench its thirst, felling the large trees on its way with terrible lashes of its tail. Having quenched its thirst it went away. Pushpamala saw this, and expecting the monster's return the next night, had recourse to a stratagem to entrap it. With this object she propped up the trees, so that they might appear to be standing firmly, although liable to fall at the least shock. The snake came back as expected, and when its huge tail, moving this way and that, struck the trees, they fell upon it, and it could not shake them off. Seeing it thus arrested, Pushpamala got down from the tree, and with one stroke of her sword cut off its head. But what was her wonder to find that out of the snake's trunk came the witch who had turned the kotál's son into a goat. The witch fell prostrate before the princess, and said:—
"I see in thee the personification of chastity. Thou hast freed me from the torments of hell."
"Who art thou?" asked Pushpa.
"I was thy mother in my former birth," replied the witch. "I broke my pledge to the kotál's wife, and have been punished in this birth. I was doomed to pass the day as a malini[1] and the night inside the snake which you have killed. As a snake, I have ravaged thy father's kingdom."
"O my mother, am I indeed thy daughter?" cried Pushpa. "In me thou hadst a viper nested in thy breast. But I fulfilled thy vow in marrying the kotál's son."
"My Pushpa, my darling, come to my bosom," exclaimed
- ↑ A gardener.
