When the king found that Mandavya was innocent, he ordered the stake to be drawn out. But try as they would, out it would not come. Said Mandavya, "Sire, I have received this dire disgrace for a fault done long ago, and it is impossible to draw the stake from my body. But if you wish to spare my life, bring a saw, and cut it off flush with the skin." So the king had this done; and the part of the stake within his body remained there. For on that previous occasion they say that he took a little piece of diamond, and pierced the fly's duct, so that it did not die then, nor until the proper end of its life; and therefore also the man did not die, they say.

The king saluted these ascetics, and craved pardon; and settling them both in his park, he looked after them there. And from that time Mandavya was called Mandavya with the Peg. And he lived in this place near the king; and Dipayana, after healing his friend's wound, went back to his friend Mandavya the householder. When they saw him enter the leaf-hut, they told it to his friend. When he heard it, he was delighted; and with wife and child, taking plenty of scents, garlands, oil, and sugar, and so forth, he came to the leaf hut; greeting Dipayana, washing and anointing his feet, and giving him to drink, he sat listening to the tale of Mandavya of the Peg. Then his son, a young man named Yanna-datta, was playing with a ball at the end of the covered walk. There a snake lived in an ant-hill. The lad's ball, thrown upon the ground, ran into the hole of the ant-hill and fell upon the snake. Not knowing this, the lad put his hand into the hole. The snake enraged bit the boy's hand; down he fell in a faint because of the strength of the snake's poison. [31] Thereupon his parents, finding their son snake-bitten, lifted him up and took him to the ascetic; laying him at the ascetic's feet, they said, "Sir, religious people know simples and charms; please cure our son."--"I know no simples; I do not ply the physician's trade."--"You are a man of religion. Have pity then, Sir, upon this lad, and do the Act of Truth." "Good," said the ascetic, "an Act of Truth I will do."And laying hands upon the head of Yanna-datta, he recited the first stanza:--

"Seven days serene in heart
Pure I lived, desiring merit:
Since then, for fifty years apart,
Self-absorbed, I do declare it,
Here, unwillingly, I live:
May this truth a blessing give:
Poison baulked, the lad revive!"