Accordingly, when the brahmin was next in attendance, the king proposed a game with the dice; the brahmin was willing; and the dicing-table was brought out. As the king made his throw, he sang his old catch, and the brahmin--ignorant of the girl's naughtiness--added his "always excepting my girl,"--and nevertheless lost!

Then the king, who did know what had passed, said to his chaplain, "Why except her? Her virtue has given way. Ah, you dreamed that by taking a girl in the hour of her birth and by placing a sevenfold guard round her, you could be certain of her. Why, you couldn't be certain of a woman, even if you had her inside you and always walked about with her. No woman is ever faithful to one man alone. As for that girl of yours, she told you she should like to dance, and having first blindfolded you as you played the lute to her, she let her paramour strike you on the head, and then smuggled him out of the house. Where then is your exception?" And so saying, the king repeated this stanza:--

Blindfold, a-luting, by his wife beguiled,
The brahmin sits,--who tried to rear
A paragon of virtue undefiled!
Learn hence to hold the sex in fear.

[294] In such wise did the Bodhisatta expound the Truth to the brahmin. And the brahmin went home and taxed the girl with the wickedness of which she was accused. "My dear husband, who can have said such a thing about me?" said she. "Indeed I am innocent; indeed it was my own hand, and nobody else's, that struck you; and, if you do not believe me, I will brave the ordeal of fire to prove that no man's hand has touched me but yours; and so I will make you believe me." "So be it," said the brahmin. And he had a quantity of wood brought and set light to it. Then the girl was summoned. "Now," said he, "if you believe your own story, brave these flames!"

Now before this the girl had instructed her attendant as follows:--"Tell your son, mother, to be there and to seize my hand just as I am about to go into the fire." And the old woman did as she was bidden; and the fellow came and took his stand among the crowd. Then, to