312 CRADLE TALES OF HINDUISM
uprightness, and Arjuna threw himself with such devotion into every task that he was the most skilful archer of them all, and the favourite of their tutor, Drona, the Brahmin.
Perhaps it was natural that the young chief of the Kurus should be made jealous by all this brilliance. But it was not knightly. Duryodhana, indeed, had courage and skill and princely daring, but not the sunny temper and generous heart of the true knight. There was a vein of treachery and skilful cunning in him, and he was too remorseless an enemy to be a perfect friend.
Long, long afterwards, when Bhishma lay dying, and when all his life was passing in review before him, as it does before the eyes of dying men, he could look back on the youth of these children of his house, and trace clearly the growth of the hatred that had led to the Great War. Every year of Duryod- hana's life had added to its bitterness, and he had been unscrupulous in striving to satisfy his enmity.
Once he had tried to poison Bhima, and had almost succeeded, but the Prince had recovered, after eight days of a deathlike swoon. Again, he had formed a dastardly plot to entrap the Pandavas and their mother into a lonely house and set it on fire. This conspiracy also had seemed to succeed, yet by the warning of Vidura» their uncle, the little company had escaped and taken shelter in the cottage of a village potter.
