Good Will Grow Out of Good

I never do my pûjâ without placing my scimitar by the side of the god, but last night I left it in my queen’s room. It is under the pillow of the couch on which I usually sleep. Until you came I could find no suitable person to fetch it for me, and so I have waited for you. Would you kindly take the trouble to fetch it for me?”

The poor Brâhmiṇ was only too glad of the opportunity thus presented to him of serving his king, and so he ran to the harem and into the room where the king usually slept. The queen was a very wicked woman and always having secret meetings with courtiers of her husband, so when Pâpabhîru returned he surprised the queen and one of her lovers walking in the garden, he went through, however, to the king’s room, and lifting up the king’s pillow felt for the scimitar, and went away. True however, to his father’s words, “Nor say thou what thine eyes discern,” he never opened his lips and went his way with a heavy heart.

The queen and her wicked suitor were greatly alarmed.

“That rogue of an old Brâhmiṇ has seen us and may report to the king at the first opportunity,” faltered the minister.

But the queen, as bold in words as in sin, said; “I will have him murdered before the sun rises. Wait you here. I shall inform the king of what is to be done and report the result to you, and then you may go home.”

So saying, she went and stood before her royal husband who was at his worship. Patnîpriya rose up and asked her the reason of her sudden appearance.

Said she, “Your Majesty seems to think the whole world as innocent as yourself. That wretched old Brâhmiṇ, though his hair is as white as milk, has not forgotten his younger days, he asked me to run away with him. If you do not order his death before to-morrow morning, I shall kill myself.”

The king was much vexed with what he heard, and all the regard he had for the Brâhmiṇ disappeared at once. He called two of his executioners and spoke to them thus before his wife:—

“Take to the east gate of the town a large iron caldron, and keep it boiling to the brim with gingely oil.