"Shut all the gates!" the king gave order: "cut off the outlets! hunt the thief!" The king's followers obeyed. The city was all confusion! The other man, taking some others with him, went up to the Bodhisatta, crying--"Hullo! stop your cart! [123] the king has lost a jewelled crest; we must search your cart! "And search it he did, till he found the jewel which he had put there himself. "Thief!" cried he, seizing the Bodhisatta; they beat him and kicked him; then binding his arms behind him they dragged him before the king, crying out--"See the thief who stole your jewel!" "Off with his head!" was the king's command. They scourged him with whips, and tormented him at every street corner, and cast him out of the city by the south gates.

Now Sujata left the waggon, and stretching out her arms she ran after him, wailing as she went--"O my husband, it is I who brought you into this woful plight!" The king's servants threw the Bodhisatta upon his back, with the intent to cut off his head. When she saw this, Sujata thought upon her own goodness and virtue, reflecting thus within herself; "I suppose there can be no spirit here strong enough to stay the hand of cruel and wicked men, who work mischief to the virtuous"; and weeping and wailing she repeated the first stanza:--

"No gods are here: they must be far away;--
No gods, who over all the world hold sway:
Now wild and violent men may work their will,
For here is no one who could say them nay."

As this virtuous woman thus lamented, the throne of Sakka , king of the Gods, grew hot as he sat upon it. [124] "Who is it that would make me fall from my godhead?" thought Sakka. Then he was ware of what was befalling. "The king of Benares," he thought, "is doing a very cruel deed. He is making the virtuous Sujata miserable; now I must go thither!" So descending from the godworld, by his own power he dismounted the wicked king from the elephant on whose back he was riding, and laid him upon his back in the place of execution, but the Bodhisatta he caught up, and decked him with all kinds of ornaments, and made the king's dress come upon him, and set him on the back of the king's elephant. The servants lifted the axe and smote off a head--but it was the king's head; and when it was off, they knew that it was the head of the king.