230 CRADLE TALES OF HINDUISM
forbade that such drinks should be made or sold within his dominions, on pain of death ; and his subjects also, understanding the great wisdom of this command, bound themselves over to refrain from their use or manufacture.
But while the citizens of Dwarka were thus striving to avert the impending calamity, Death, the embodied form of Time, wandered daily to and fro amongst their dwellings. Like unto a man of fierce and terrible look, bald-headed, and dark of colour he was. Sometimes he was seen by the Vrishnis as he peered into their houses. Their greatest archers took aim again and again at him, but none of their shafts succeeded in piercing him, for he was none other than the Destroyer of all beings himself. Day after day strong winds blew, and many were the evil omens that were seen, awful, and foreboding the de- struction of the royal clans. The streets swarmed with rats. Earthen pots showed cracks, or broke, from no apparent cause. Mice in the night would eat away the hair and nails of slumbering men. The chirping of the mocking-bird was constantly heard within the house. Cranes were known to hoot like owls, and goats to imitate the cries of jackals. Pigeons, messengers of coming ruin, were seen to enter and fly about the houses of the Vrishnis. Animals went astray in their kinds. Asses were bom of kine and elephants of mules ;
