11.  If you had been the king, how would you have set about finding the treasure?

12.  Was it a good or a bad thing for the Brahman to have secured the help of the king?

CHAPTER VII

After the king had seen the big empty hole, and noticed exactly where it was, and the nearest way to it from the town, he returned to his palace, first telling the Brahman to go back to the house he lived in, and wait there till he received a message from him.  He promised to see that he wanted for nothing, and sent one of his attendants to a rich merchant of Sravasti, who had already done a good deal for the Brahman, to order him to supply the holy man with all he needed.  Very glad that after all he was not going to die, the Brahman obeyed willingly, and for the next few days he was taken care of by the merchant, who supplied him with plenty of food.

As soon as Prasnajit was back in his palace, he pretended that he was taken suddenly ill.  His head ached badly, he said, and he could not make out what was the matter with him.  He ordered a proclamation to be sent all round the town, telling all the doctors to come to the palace to see him.  All the doctors in the place at once hastened to obey, each of them hoping that he would be the one to cure the king and win a great reward.  So many were they that the big reception room was full of them, and they all glared at each other so angrily that the attendants kept careful watch lest they should begin to fight.  One at a time they were taken to the king’s private room, but very much to their surprise and disappointment he seemed quite well and in no need of help from them.  Instead of talking about his own illness, he asked each doctor who his patients were in the town, and what medicines he was giving to them.  Of course Prasnajit’s questions were carefully answered; but the king said nothing more, just waving his hand to shew that the interview was at an end.  Then the attendants led the visitor out.  At last however a doctor came, who said something which led the king to keep him longer than he had kept any of the others.  This doctor was a very famous healer who had saved the lives of many of Prasnajit’s subjects.  He told the king that a merchant named Matri-Datta was very ill, suffering greatly, but that he hoped to cure him by giving him the juice of a certain plant called nagaballa.  At the time this story was written, doctors in India did not give their patients medicine, or write prescriptions for them to take to chemists to be made up, because there were no chemists in those days, such as there are in all the towns of Europe, who keep the materials in stock for making medicines.  A doctor just said to his patient, “you must take the juice of this or that plant”; and the suffering person had to go into the fields or woods to find the plant or else to send a servant to do so.

When the king heard that the doctor had ordered Matri-Datta to take the juice of the nagaballa plant, he cried “No more doctors need come to see me!” and after sending away the one who had told him what he wanted to know, he gave orders that Matri-Datta should be sent for at once.