’Friend! gracious word!—­the heart to tell is ill able
    Whence came to men this jewel of a syllable.’

‘Let us,’ continued he to his companions, ’let us make one attempt, at least, to rescue Slow-toes before the hunter is out of the wood!’

‘Only tell us how to do it,’ replied they.

‘Do thus,’ said Golden-skin:  ’let Dapple-back hasten on to the water, and lie down there and make himself appear dead; and do you, Light o’ Leap, hover over him and peck about his body.  The hunter is sure to put the Tortoise down to get the venison, and I will gnaw his bonds.’

’The Deer and the Crow started at once; and the hunter, who was sitting down to rest under a tree and drinking water, soon caught sight of the Deer, apparently dead.  Drawing his wood-knife, and putting the Tortoise down by the water, he hastened to secure the Deer, and Golden-skin, in the meantime, gnawed asunder the string that held Slow-toes, who instantly dropped into the pool.  The Deer, of course, when the hunter got near, sprang up and made off, and when he returned to the tree the Tortoise was gone also.  “I deserve this,” thought he—­

    ’Whoso for greater quits his gain,
    Shall have his labor for his pain;
    The things unwon unwon remain,
    And what was won is lost again.’

And so lamenting, he went to his village.  Slow-toes and his friends, quit of all fears, repaired together to their new habitations, and there lived happily.

Then spake the King Sudarsana’s sons, “We have heard every word, and are delighted; it fell out just as we wished.”

“I rejoice thereat, my Princes,” said Vishnu-Sarman; “may it also fall out according to this my wish—­

    “Lakshmi give you friends like these! 
    Lakshmi keep your lands in ease! 
    Set, your sovereign thrones beside,
    Policy, a winsome bride! 
    And He, whose forehead-jewel is the moon
    Give peace to us and all—­serene and soon.”

[3] Used in many religious observances by the Hindoos.

[4] Heaven, earth, and the lower regions.

[5] The Hindoo accounts for the origin of evil by this theory of a series of existences continued until the balance is just, and the soul has purified itself.  Every fault must have its expiation and every higher faculty its development; pain and misery being signs of the ordeals in the trial, which is to end in the happy re-absorption of the emancipated spirit.

[6] The mouse, as vehicle of Gunesh, is an important animal in Hindoo legend.

[7] The champak is a bushy tree, bearing a profusion of star-like blossoms with golden centres, and of the most pleasing perfume.

[8] A religious observance.  The devotee commences the penance at the full moon with an allowance of fifteen mouthfuls for his food, diminishing this by one mouthful each day, till on the fifteenth it is reduced to one.  As the new moon increases, his allowance ascends to its original proportion.