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not require anything; but do you eat something, as you are exhausted."
Then I got hold of a gourd and ate it, and no sooner had I eaten it, than it turned me into a python.
But king Vishamaśila, when ho saw me suddenly turn into a python, was astonished and despondent. So, being there alone, he called to mind the Vetála Bhútaketu, whom he had long ago made his servant, by delivering him with a look from a disease of the eyes. That Vetála came, as soon as the king called him to mind, and bowing before him said, " Why did you call me to mind, great king? Give me your orders." Then the king said, " Good sir, this my kárpațika has been suddenly turned into a python by eating a gourd; restore him to his former condition." But the Vetála said, "King, I have not the power to do this. Powers are strictly limited; can water quench the flame of lightning?" Then the king said, " Then let us go to this village, my friend. We may eventually hear of some remedy from the Bhillas there."
When the king had come to this conclusion, he went to that village with the Vetála. There the bandits surrounded him, seeing that he wore ornaments. But when they began to rain arrows upon him, the Vetála, by the order of the king, devoured five hundred of them. The rest fled and told their chief what had occurred, and he, whose name was Ekáki- keśarin, came there in wrath, with his host. But one of his servants recognised the monarch, and the chief hearing from him who it was, came and clung to Vikramáditya's feet, and announced himself. Then the king welcomed kindly the submissive chief, and asked after his health, and said to him, " My kárpațika has become a python by eating the fruit of a gourd in the forest; so devise some plan for releasing him from his transformation."
When that chief heard this speech of the king's, he said to him, " King, let this follower of yours shew him to my son here." Then that son of his came with the Vetála, and made me a man as before by means of a sternutatory made of the extract of a plant. And then we went joyful into the presence of the king; and when I bent at the feet of the king, the king informed the delighted chief who I was.
Then the Bhilla chief Ekákikeśarin, after obtaining the king's consent, conducted him and us to his palace. And we beheld that dwelling of his, crowded with Śavaras, having its high walls covered with the tusks of elephants, adorned with tiger-skins; in which the women had for garments the tails of peacocks, for necklaces strings of gunjá-fruit, and for perfume the ichor that flows from the foreheads of elephants. There the wife of the chief, having her garments perfumed with musk, adorned with pearls and such like ornaments, herself waited on the king.
Then the king, having bathed and taken a meal, observed that the chief's sons were old, while he was a young man, and put this question to
