[150] They loosed his girdle, and at the instant the girdle was loosed, he fell dead. Then he said to them, "You are all of you in the same condition: go to your homes, and set in order what should be ordered, and give your directions to your wives and families, and then doff your armour." They did so, and then all of them gave up the ghost .

And Bandhula conveyed Mallika to Savatthi. She bore twin sons sixteen times in succession, and they were all mighty men and heroes, and became perfected in all manner of accomplishments. Each one of them had a thousand

men to attend him, and when they went with their father to wait on the king, they alone filled the courtyard of the palace to overflowing.

One day some men who had been defeated in court on a false charge, seeing Bandhula approach, raised a great outcry, and informed him that the judges of the court had supported a false charge. So Bandhula went into the court, and judged the case, and gave each man his own. The crowd uttered loud shouts of applause. The king asked what it meant, and on hearing was much pleased; all those officers he sent away, and gave Bandhula charge of the judgement court, and thenceforward he judged aright. Then the former judges became poor, because they no longer received bribes, and they slandered Bandhula in the king's ear, accusing him of aiming at the kingdom himself. The king listened to their words, and could not control his suspicions. "But," he reflected, "if he be slain here, I shall be blamed." He suborned certain men to harry the frontier districts; then sending for Bandhula, he said, "The borders are in a blaze; go with your sons and capture the brigands." With him he also sent other men sufficient, mighty men of war, with instructions to kill him and his two-and-thirty sons, and cut off their heads, and bring them back.

While he was yet on the way, the hired brigands got wind of the general's coming, and took to flight. He settled the people of that district in their homes, and quieted the province, and set out for home. Then when he was not far from the city, those warriors cut off his head and the heads of his sons.