"Who are you? and why did you assume disguise? Surely you disgraced yourself and your family, and sought shelter in my palace. Be off." But Pushpa replied, "O king, the father of the fatherless and the helper of the helpless, listen to me before I leave your presence. In the house of the gardener before you, there are a goat and heaps of bones of a thousand and one goats. Let me have them, I beseech you." The king asked the gardener if what the girl said was true; but the gardener denied every word. Pushpa, at this, stepped forward and said, "O Maharaja, send your men to verify my statement. I have to charge your gardener with another falsehood. Let him, with his face towards the sun, affirm that it was he who killed the snake, and not I." The girl's manners impressed the king with the truth of what she said, and he sent men to the gardener's house to see if the goat and bones were there, reserving for the time being his verdict on the question as to who had killed the snake. The girl, with folded hands, again said, "O gracious majesty, allow me to remain in the palace for four days more, for I have vowed to do so. On the morning of the fifth day I will leave here, but not before I have seen the goat and the bones brought from the gardener's house." The king granted her request, and Pushpa remained in the palace, pondering over the past and the future.
The four days came to an end, and on the morning of the fifth day she was summoned by the king to appear before the crowded court to say what she knew about the goat and the bones, of which she had spoken and which were at that time lying there. She came, clad in female attire, and said, "O king, give me your permission to tell you a story connected with the matter before you." The king nodded his assent, and she continued thus, "Witness sun and moon, witness the elements, the truth of what I say. I was a king's daughter, affianced by my parents to our kotál's son before we were born. My parents afterwards broke their promise, and we, partly to redeem their word, and partly in obedience to the
