two rains fell a-fighting on a pasture at Benares. As they were hard at it, a certain fork-tail thought to himself, "These two will crack their polls and perish; I must restrain them." So he tried to restrain them by calling out--"Uncle, don't fight!" Not a word he got from them: in the midst of the battle, mounting first on the back, then on the head, he besought them to stop, but could do nothing. At last he cried, "Fight, then, but kill me first!" and placed himself between the two heads. They went on butting away at each other. The bird was crushed as by a pounder, and came to destruction by his own act. To explain this other tale the Great Being repeated the fourth stanza:

"Between two fighting rams a fork-tail flew,
Though in the fray he had no part nor share.
The two rams' heads did crush him then and there.
He in his fate was monstrous like to you!"

Another. There was a tal-tree which the cowherds set great store by. The people of Benares seeing it sent a certain man up the tree to gather fruit. As he was throwing down the fruit, a black snake issuing forth from an anthill began to ascend the tree; they who stood below tried to drive him off by striking at him with sticks and other things, but could not. Then they called out to the other, "A snake is climbing the tree!" and he in terror uttered a loud cry. Those who stood below seized a stout cloth by the four corners, and bade him fall into the cloth. He let himself drop, and fell in the midst of the cloth between the four of them; swift as the wind he came, and the men could not hold him, [251] but jolled their four heads together and broke them, and so died. To explain this story the Great Being recited the fifth stanza:

"Four men, to save a fellow from his fate,
Held the four corners of a cloth below.
They all fell dead, each with a broken pate.
These men were monstrous like to you, I trow."

Others again tell this. Some goat-thieves who lived at Benares having stolen a she-goat one night, determined to make a meal in the forest: to prevent her bleating they muffled her snout and tied her up in a bamboo clump. Next day, on their way to kill her, they forgot the chopper. "Now we'll kill the goat, and cook her," said they; "bring the chopper here!" But nobody had one. "Without a chopper," said they, "we cannot eat the beast, even if we kill her: let her go! this is due to some merit of hers." So they let her go. Now it happened that a worker in bamboos, who had been there for a bundle of them, left a basket-maker's knife there hidden among the leaves, intending to use it when he came again. But the goat, thinking herself to be free, began playing about under the bamboo clump, and kicking with her hind legs made the knife drop. The thieves heard the sound of the falling knife, and on coming to