Red-Eye said: "O King, what is there to consider here? Kill him without hesitation. For the proverb says:
Kill a weakling, lest he grow
Hard to smite;
Later, with augmented power
He will fight.
Besides, you know how common people say: 'A lost chance brings a curse.' And again:
He who will not when he may,
When he will, he shall have nay.
And this too:
The lighted funeral pile you may
Break up and fling apart;
But love, when torn and patched again,
Lives in an aching heart."
"How was that?" asked Foe-Crusher. And Red-Eye told the story of
THE SNAKE WHO PAID CASH
There was once a Brahman in a certain place. His time was wholly spent in unproductive farming.
Now one day, toward the end of summer, the heat was too much for him, and he dozed in the shade of a tree in the middle of his field. Not far away he saw, peering over an ant-hill, a terrifying snake that thrust forward a great, swelling hood. And he reflected: "Surely, this is the guardian deity of the field, and I never paid him honor. That is why my farm-work is unproductive. I will pay him honor."
