’Betel-nut is bitter, hot, sweet, spicy, binding, alkaline—­
    A demulcent—­an astringent—­foe to evils intestine;
    Giving to the breath a fragrance—­to the lips a crimson red;
    A detergent, and a kindler of Love’s flame that lieth dead. 
    Praise the gods for the good Betel!—­these be thirteen virtues given,
    Hard to meet in one thing blended, even in their happy heaven.’

’Now the King narrowly watched the spending of Vira-vara’s pay, and discovered that he bestowed half in the service of the Gods and the support of Brahmans, a fourth part in relieving the poor, and reserved a fourth for his sustenance and recreation.  This daily division made, he would take his stand with his sabre at the gate of the palace; retiring only upon receiving the royal permission.

’It was on the fourteenth night of the dark half of the month that King Sudraka heard below a sound of passionate sobbing.  ‘Ho! there,’ he cried, ‘who waits at the gate?’

‘I,’ replied Vira-vara, ‘may it please you.’

‘Go and learn what means this weeping,’ said the King.

‘I go, your Majesty,’ answered the Rajpoot, and therewith departed.

’No sooner was he gone than the King repented him of sending one man alone into a night so dark that a bodkin might pierce a hole in it, and girding on his scimitar, he followed his guard beyond the city gates.  When Vira-vara had gone thus far he encountered a beautiful and splendidly dressed lady who was weeping bitterly; and accosting her, he requested to know her name, and why she thus lamented.

‘I am the Fortune of the King Sudraka,’ answered she; ’a long while I have lived happily in the shadow of his arm; but on the third day he will die, and I must depart, and therefore lament I.’

‘Can nothing serve, Divine Lady, to prolong thy stay?’ asked the Rajpoot.

‘It might be,’ replied the Spirit, ’if thou shouldst cut off the head of thy first-born Shaktidhar, that hath on his body the thirty-two auspicious marks of greatness.  Were his head offered to the all-helpful Durga, the Rajah should live a hundred years, and I might tarry beside him.’

’So speaking, she disappeared, and Vira-vara retraced his steps to his own house and awoke his wife and son.  They arose, and listened with attention until Vira-vara had repeated all the words of the vision.  When he had finished, Shaktidhar exclaimed, ’I am thrice happy to be able to save the state of the King.  Kill me, my father, and linger not; to give my life in such a cause is good indeed,’ ‘Yes,’ said the Mother, ’it is good, and worthy of our blood; how else should we deserve the King’s pay?’ Being thus agreed, they repaired together at once to the temple of the Goddess Durga, and having paid their devotions and entreated the favor of the deity on behalf of the King, Vira-vara struck off his son’s head, and laid it as an offering upon the shrine.  That done, Vira-vara said, ’My service to the King is accomplished, and life without my boy is but a burden,’ and therewith he plunged his sword in his own breast and fell dead.  Overpowered with grief for her husband and child, the mother also withdrew the twice-blooded weapon, and slew herself with it on the bodies of Vira-vara and Shaktidhar.