The Soothsayer's Son

The prince did not at all believe that his father was devoured by the tiger. His belief was that some hunters, coveting the ornaments on the king’s person, had murdered him. Hence he had issued the notice. The goldsmith knew full well that it was a tiger that killed the king, and not any hunter’s hands, since he had heard from Gaṅgâdhara about how he obtained the crown. Still, ambition to get half the kingdom prevailed, and he resolved with himself to make over Gaṅgâdhara as the king’s murderer. The crown was lying on the floor where Gaṅgâdhara left it with his full confidence in Mâṇikkâśâri. Before his protector’s return the goldsmith, hiding the crown under his garments, flew to the palace. He went before the prince and informed him that the assassin was caught, and placed the crown before him. The prince took it into his hands, examined it, and at once gave half the kingdom to Mâṇikkâśâri, and then enquired about the murderer. “He is bathing in the river, and is of such and such appearance,” was the reply. At once four armed soldiers fly to the river, and bound the poor Brâhmaṇ hand and foot, he sitting in meditation the while, without any knowledge of the fate that hung over him. They brought Gaṅgâdhara to the presence of the prince, who turned his face away from the murderer or supposed murderer, and asked his soldiers to throw him into the kârâgṛiham(Dungeon). In a minute, without knowing the cause, the poor Brâhmaṇ found himself in the dark caves of the kârâgṛiham.

In old times the kârâgṛiham answered the purposes of the modern jail. It was a dark cellar underground, built with strong stone walls, into which any criminal guilty of a capital offence was ushered to breathe his last there without food and drink. Such was the cellar into which Gaṅgâdhara was thrust. In a few hours after he left the goldsmith he found himself inside a dark cell stinking with human bodies, dying and dead. What were his thoughts when he reached that place? “It is the goldsmith that has brought me to this wretched state; and, as for the prince: Why should he not enquire as to how I obtained the crown?