like a lamp at midnight surrounded by the corpses of her victims, who fluttered about her lustre and perished in its flame.  And then at last, one day it came about that a tall young Rajpoot almost as beautiful as thou art arrived at Waranasi.  And Kashayini[22] (for that was her name) saw him from a window as he came into the city; and instantly like an empty pitcher suddenly plunged into the Ganges, she was filled to the very brim by the inrush of Love’s sacred nectar.  And she said to herself:  The very first thing that he will hear of in the city is myself.  And like everybody else, he will come immediately to see me:  and that very moment, I shall abandon the body out of shame.  For though my beauty might attract him, yet he will be convinced that many lovers have preceded him, and therefore, at the bottom of his heart he will despise me.  And this would be worse than any death.  And yet without him, my birth will have been in vain.  Therefore, I must devise some expedient.  So after a while, she went out in disguise, and bought for a large sum of money the body of a woman of her own age and size who had died that very day.  And bringing that body home secretly at night, she dressed it in her own clothes, and burned it till its identity was obliterated.  And then she set fire to her house, and left it by a back door, and went away, abandoning all her wealth but the jewels that she wore, for the sake of her picture in the air[23].  And at that very moment, the Rajpoot came along, led by some of the townspeople to visit her, as it were set on fire by the very description of her beauty.  And he looked and saw the flames bursting from her house, as though lit by himself.  And they found the half burned body in the ashes, and immediately all the lovers of Kashayini followed her through the fire of grief to the other world.  But the Rajpoot managed, in spite of disappointment, to remain alive.  And she, in the meantime, having given everyone the slip, found a false ascetic, and bribed him with jewels, giving him instructions without letting him know who she was.  So that ascetic went and struck up acquaintance with the Rajpoot, pretending to be a discoverer of treasure[24].  And he performed incantations, and after awhile he said to him:  Go quickly to Ujjayini; and dig in the north-east corner of the burning ground outside the city on the very last day of the dark half of the month of Magha, and thou shalt find a treasure.  Take it, for what is the use of treasure to such a one as me?  Thereupon the Rajpoot, having nothing else to do, went.  And Kashayini, having first made sure that the bait had taken, went herself and got there before him.  So when that Rajpoot arrived, he dug exactly as he was told, and found absolutely nothing.  And cursing his destiny, he went out of the burning ground in the early morning:  and as he went along, suddenly he saw Kashayini, who was waiting for him, sitting weeping by the wayside, under a great ashwattha