placed beside him a little water in a small skin, and a little bag of
corn. And his uncle said: Now, O nephew, we will leave thee, alone with
thy shadow and thy life in the sand. And if thou canst save thyself, by
going away to the western quarter, lo! it is open before thee. But
beware of attempting to return home, towards the rising sun. For I will
set guards to watch thy coming, and I will not spare thee a second time.

And then, he set his left arm free, and laid beside him a little knife.
And they mounted their camels, and taking his, they flew away from him
over the sand, like the shadow of a cloud driven by the western wind.

So when they were gone, Aja took the knife, and cut his bonds. And he
stood up, and watched them going, till they became specks on the edge
of the desert, and vanished out of his sight.

II.

Then he looked round to the eight quarters of the world, and he looked
up into the sky. And he said to himself: There is my ancestor, alone
above, and I am alone, below. And he put his two hands to his breast,
and flung them out into the air. And he exclaimed: Bho! ye guardians of
the world[4], ye are my witnesses. Thus do I fling away the past, and
now the whole wide world is mine, and ye are my protectors. And I have
escaped death by a miracle, and the craft of that old villain of a prime
minister, whom I will one day punish as he deserves. And now it is as
though I knew, for the very first time in all my life, what it was to be
alive. Ha! I live and breathe, and there before me is food and water.
And now we will see, which is the stronger: Death in the form of this
lonely desert, or the life that laughs at his menace as it dances in my
veins. And little I care for the loss of my kingdom, now that my father
is dead and gone. I throw it away like a blade of grass, and so far from
lamenting, I feel rather as if I had been born again. Ha! it is good to
be alive, even in this waste of sand. And he shouted aloud, and called
out to the sun above him: Come, old Grandfather, thou and I will travel
together across the sand. And yet, no. Thou art too rapid and too fierce
to be a safe companion, even for one of thy own race. So thou shalt go
before me, as is due to thee, and I will follow after.

[4] The _Lokapalas_, or regents of the world, often thus
appealed to, are eight: Kubera, Isha, Indra, Agni, Yama,
Niruti, Waruna, and Wayu: and they ride on a horse, a bull,
an elephant, a ram, a b