So Hoonamunta spake to her, bidding her be of good cheer, for Brahm was with her, and the Omnipotent Three,—­bade her be of good heart and wait.  And Seeta’s smile was as the alighting of many butterflies, and her voice of murmured joy was as the rustling of all the roses of Ayodhya.

Then Hoonamunta took counsel with his cunning; and he said unto himself, “I will arouse the sleepers; I will take the strength of the city; I will count the heads of Rawunna, and the arms of him.”

So straightway he resumed his monkey shape, and went forth into the streets, by the tanks and through the bazaars, among the places of the oppressed and the places of the powerful.

And he bit the ears of the Pariah dogs, so that they howled; he twisted the tails of the Brahmin bulls, so that they rushed, bellowing, down to the ghauts; he plucked the beards of gorged adjutants, till they snapped their great beaks with a terrible clatter.

He made a great splashing in the tanks; he ran through the bazaars, banging the gongs of the bell-makers, and smashing the brittle wares of the potters; he tore holes in the roofs of houses, and threw down tiles upon them that were buried in slumber; he cried with a loud voice, “Siva, Siva, the Destroyer, cometh!”

So that the city awoke with a great outcry and a din, with all its torches and all its dogs.  And the multitude filled the streets, and the compounds, and the open places round about the tanks; and all cried, “Siva, Siva!”

But when they beheld Hoonamunta, how he tore off roofs, and pelted them with tiles,—­how he climbed to the tops of pagodas, and jangled the sacred bells,—­how he laid his shoulder to the city walls and overthrew them, so that the noise of their fall was as the roar of the breakers on the far-off coast of Lunka when the Typhoon blows,—­then they cried, “A demon! a fiend from the halls of Yama!” and they gave chase with a mighty uproar,—­the gooroos, and the yogees, and the jugglers going first.

Then Hoonamunta took counsel with his cunning; and he came down and stood in the midst of the angry people, and asked, “What would you with me? and where is this demon you pursue?”

But they cried, “Hear him, how he mocks us!  Hear him, how he flouts us!” and they dragged him into the presence of Rawunna, the king.

And when the giant would have questioned him, who he was, and whence he came, and what his mission, he only mocked, and mimicked the fee-faw-fumness of Rawunna’s tones, and said, “Lo!  This beggar goes a-foot, but his words ride in a palanquin!”

And the king said, “I have been foolish, I have been weak, to waste words on this kafir.  Am not I a mighty monarch?  Am not I a terrible giant?  Let him be cast out!”

And again Hoonamunta mocked him, saying, “His insanity is past! fetch him the rice-pounder that he may gird himself! fetch him the gong that he may cover his feet!”

And Hoonamunta would have sat on the throne, on Rawunna’s right hand; but Rawunna thrust him off, and cursed him.