IX
HATI SING, OR THE VANQUISHER OF AN ELEPHANT
THERE once lived a very poor family, consisting only of a mother and her son. The latter was worthless, and unable to earn a pice for the maintenance of his mother or himself. The poor woman had to submit to the greatest drudgery, in spite of which they could hardly get sufficient food to keep them alive. One day, in the bitterness of her heart, she cast reproaches at her son, Dulal, for the useless way in which he passed his life. The young man felt the reproaches deeply, and knowing full well that it was beyond his power to improve, he formed the resolution of committing suicide.
Poisoning seemed to him the best method of carrying out his resolution. But whence could he get the poison? To buy any was out of the question, for that would require money, of which he had none. His inventive mind, however, soon devised a way. He went to a place which he knew to be frequented by cobras, and finding one of them, hit it on the tail with a stick and placed a plantain leaf before it. The infuriated reptile, with its hood erect, bit the leaf, and deposited its poison on it. Dulal was delighted with his success, and begging a little múrhi[1] from a neighbouring shop, to mix with the poison in order to take off its hot and pungent taste, he went to the bank of the river Ganges to end his life there. A bath in the river is supposed by Hindus to be the surest passport into heaven, and Dulal, an orthodox
- ↑ Fried rice.
