One day Queen Khema, in the dawning, saw a dream, and this was the manner of that dream. A gold-coloured stag sat on a golden seat, and he discoursed to the queen on the Law with a honey-sweet voice, like the sound of a golden bell tinkling. She listened with great delight to this discoursing, but before the discourse was ended the deer rose and went away; and she awoke, crying out--"Catch me the stag!" The attendants, hearing her cry, burst out a-laughing. "Here's the house shut close, door and window; not even a breath of air can get in, and at such a time my lady calls out to catch her the stag!" [414] By this time she understood that it was a dream. But she said to herself, "If I say, it is a dream, the king will make no account of it; but if I say, it is my woman's craving, he will attend to it with all care. I will hear the discourse of the golden stag!" Then she lay down as though sick. The king came in: "What is wrong with my queen?" said he. "Oh, my lord, only my natural craving."--"What do you wish?"--"I wish to hear the discourse of a righteous golden stag."--"Why, my lady, what you crave does not exist: there is no such thing as a golden stag." She said, "If I don't get it, die I must on the spot." She turned her back on the king, and lay still. "If there is one, it shall be caught," said the king. Then he questioned his courtiers and brahmins, just as in the Peacock Birth , whether there were such things as golden deer. Finding that there were, he summoned the huntsmen, and asked, "Which of you has seen or heard of such a creature?" The son of the hunter we spoke of told the story as he heard it. "My man," said the king, "when you bring me this deer I will reward you richly; go and bring it here." He gave the money for his expenses, and dismissed him. The man said, "Never fear: if I cannot bring the stag I will bring his skin; if I can't get that I will bring his hair." Then the man returned home, and gave the king's money to his family. Then he went out and saw the royal stag. "Where shall I lay my snare," he mused, "so as to catch him?" He saw his chance at the drinking-place. He twisted a stout cord of leather thongs, and set it with a pole at the place where the Great Being went down to drink water.

Next day, the Great Being with the eighty thousand deer during his search for food came thither to drink water at the usual ford. Just as he was going down, he was caught in the noose. Then he thought, "If I cry out the cry of capture , all my troop will flee in