Karnapuraka's heroism to-day!

_Vasantasena._ What, Karnapuraka, what?

_Karnapuraka._ Listen. Post-breaker, my mistress' rogue elephant,
broke the stake he was tied to, killed his keeper, and ran into the
street, making a terrible commotion. You should have heard the
people shriek,

Take care of the babies, as quick as you can.
And climb up a roof or a tree!
The elephant rogue wants the blood of a man.
Escape! Run away! Can't you see? 18

P. 74.14]

And:

How they lose their ankle-rings!
Girdles, set with gems and things,
Break away from fastenings!

As they stumble, trip, and blunder,
See the bracelets snap asunder,
Each a tangled, pearly wonder! 19

And that rogue of an elephant dives with his trunk and his feet
and his tusks into the city of Ujjayini, as if it were a lotus-pond
in full flower. At last he comes upon a Buddhist monk.[43] And
while the man's staff and his water-jar and his begging-bowl fly
every which way, he drizzles water over him and gets him between
his tusks. The people see him and begin to shriek again,
crying "Oh, oh, the monk is killed!"

_Vasantasena._ [_Anxiously._] Oh, what carelessness, what carelessness!

_Karnapuraka._ Don't be frightened. Just listen, mistress. Then,
with a big piece of the broken chain dangling about him, he picked
him up, picked up the monk between his tusks, and just then
Karnapuraka saw him, _I_ saw him, no, no! the slave who grows
fat on my mistress' rice-cakes saw him, stumbled with his left
foot over a gambler's score, grabbed up an iron pole out of a shop,
and challenged the mad elephant--

_Vasantasena._ Go on! Go on!

_Karnap._

I hit him--in a fit of passion, too--
He really looked like some great mountain peak.
And from between those tusks of his I drew
The sacred hermit meek. 20

_Vasantasena._ Splendid, splendid! But go on!

_Karnapuraka._ Then, mistress, all Ujjayini tipped over to one side,
like a ship loaded unevenly, and you could hear nothing but "Hurrah,
hurrah for Karnapuraka!" Then, mistress, a man touched the
places where he ought to have ornaments, and, finding that he
hadn't any, looked up, heaved a long sigh, and threw this mantle
over me.

[41.19. S.

_Vasantasena._ Find out, Karnapuraka, whether the mantle is perfumed
with jasmine or not.

_Karnapuraka._ Mistre