palace to pray alone. He would sometimes stop there a long time,
winning fresh wisdom and strength to do the work he was trusted with,
and praying not only for himself, but for his father, his mother,
his aunts and uncles, and for the people he loved so much.

The murderer was told to wait in this temple, and when the young king
was absorbed in prayer, to fall suddenly upon him and kill him. Then,
when Putraka was dead, he was to take his body and bury it far away
in the depths of the forest where it could never be found. At first it
seemed likely that this cruel plot would succeed. To make quite sure,
the murderer got two other men as wicked as himself to come and help
him, promising to give them a share in the reward. But the god who
had taken care of Putraka ever since he was born, did not forget him
now. As the young king prayed, forgetting everything in his earnest
pleading for those he loved, he did not see or hear the evil men
drawing stealthily close to him. Their arms were uplifted to slay him,
and the gleam of the weapons in the light that was always kept burning
flashed upon him, when suddenly the heavenly guardian of the temple,
who never left it day or night, but was generally invisible, appeared
and cast a spell upon the wicked men, whose hands were arrested in
the very act to strike.

What a wonderful sight that must have been, when Putraka, disturbed in
his prayers, looked round and saw the men who had come to kill him,
with the shadowy form of the guardian threatening them! He knew at
once that he had been saved from a dreadful death by a messenger from
the god he had been worshipping. As he gazed at the men, the guardian
faded away and he was left alone with them. Slowly the spell cast on
them was broken, and they dropped their weapons, prostrated themselves,
and clasped their hands in an appeal for mercy to the man they had
meant to destroy. Putraka looked at them quietly and sadly. He felt
no anger against them, only a great thankfulness for his escape. He
spoke to the men very sternly, asking them why they wished to harm him;
and the chief murderer told him who had sent them.

The knowledge that his father wished to kill him shocked and grieved
the young long terribly, but he controlled himself even when he learnt
the sad truth. He told the men that he forgave them, for they were
not the most to blame; and he made them promise never to betray who
had bribed them to kill him. He then gave them some