At these words, wife, children, and servants all thought, "It's a long time since he was this way minded. He must have been drinking to be so good-natured and generous to-day." And his wife said to him, "Be as bountiful as you please, my husband." "Send for the crier," said he, "and bid him proclaim by beat of drum all through the city that everyone who wants gold, silver, diamonds, pearls, and the like, is to come to the house of Illisa the Treasurer." His wife did as he bade, and a large crowd soon assembled at the door carrying baskets and sacks. Then Sakka bade the treasure-chambers be thrown open, anal cried, "This is my gift to you; take what you will and go your ways." And the crowd seized on the riches there stored, and piled them in heaps on the floor and filled the bags and vessels they had brought, and went off laden with the spoils. Among them was a countryman who yoked Illisa's oxen to Illisa's carriage, filled it with the seven things of price, and journeyed out of the city along the highroad. As he went along, he drew near the thicket, and sang the Treasurer's praises in these words:--"May you live to be a hundred, my good lord Illisa! What you have done for me this day will enable me to live without doing another stroke of work. Whose were these oxen?--yours. Whose was this carriage?--yours. Whose the wealth in the carriage?--yours again. It was no father or mother who gave me all this; no, it came solely from you, my lord."

These words filled the Lord High Treasurer with fear and trembling. "Why, the fellow is mentioning my name in his talk," said he to himself. "Can the king have been distributing my wealth to the people?" [352] At the bare thought he bounded from the bush, and, recognizing his own