[paragraph continues] Benares is a peaceful lake of such and such a kind: thither the paka geese go and feed. Do you tell the Dhatarattha king, and, if he allows us, we too will go and feed there." Sumukha told the king, who thought, "Men, verily, are full of wiles and skilled in expedients: there must be some reason for this. All this long time past there was no such lake: it must have been made now to catch us." And he said to Sumukha, "Let not this going there meet with your approval. This lake was not constructed by them in good faith; it was made to catch us. Men surely are cruelly minded and versed in expedients: keep still in your own feeding grounds." [358] The golden geese a second time told Sumukha they were anxious to visit the Lake of Peace and he reported their wishes to the king. The Great Being thought, "My kinsfolk must not be vexed by reason of me: we will go there." So accompanied by ninety thousand geese he went and browsed there, disporting himself after the manner of geese and then returned to Cittakuta. Khemaka, after they had fed and taken their departure, went and reported their arrival to the king of Benares. The king was highly pleased and said, "Friend Khemaka, try and catch one or two geese and I will confer great honour on you." With these words he paid his expenses and sent him away. Returning there the fowler seated himself in a skeleton pot and watched the movements of the geese. Bodhisattas verily are free from all greed. Therefore the Great Being, starting from the spot where he alighted, went on eating the paddy in due order. All the others wandered about, eating here and there. So the fowler thought, "This goose is free from greed: this is the one I must catch." The next day before the geese had alighted on the lake, he went to the place hard by and concealing himself in the framework of his pot he remained there sitting in it and looking through a chink in the frame. At that moment the Great Being escorted by ninety thousand geese came down on the same spot where he had alighted the day before, and sitting down at the limit of yesterday's feeding ground he went on browsing. The fowler, looking through a chink in his cage and marking the extraordinary beauty of the bird, thought, "This goose is as big as a waggon, gold-coloured and with its neck encircled with three stripes of red. Three lines running down the throat pass along the middle of the belly, while other three stripes run down and mark off the back, and its body shines like a mass of gold poised on a string made of the thread of red wool. This must be their king, and this is the one I will seize." And the goose-king, after feeding over a wide field, disported himself in the water and then surrounded by his flock returned to Cittakuta. For six days he fed after this manner. On the seventh day Khemaka twisted a big stout cord of black horse-hair and fixed a noose upon a stick, and, knowing for certain the goose-king would alight to-morrow on the same spot, [359] he set the stick on which the snare was mounted in the water.