cried the King. "Tell me quickly which way it went!" His face was inflamed with eagerness, and his clothing and jewels displayed his high rank. But though the saint evidently heard his questions, he answered never a word.
Pariksheet could hardly believe his own senses, that one to whom he addressed a question should refuse to answer. But when he had repeated his words many times, all the energy of the royal huntsman turned into bitter anger and contempt, and seeing a dead snake lying on the earth, he lifted it on the end of an arrow, and coiling it round the neck of the hermit, turned slowly about, to make his way homewards. It is said by some that ere the King had gone many paces, he realised how wrongly he had acted in thus insulting some unknown holy man. But it was already too late. Nothing could now avert the terrible destiny which his own anger was about to bring upon him, and which was already creeping nearer and nearer to destroy.
To Shamika the hermit, meanwhile, insult and praise were both alike. He knew Pariksheet for a great king, true to the commonwealth, and to the duties of his order, and he felt no anger at the treatment measured out to him, but sat on quietly, absorbed in prayer, the dead snake remaining as it had been placed by the hunter's arrow. And even thus was he still
