erchant's son. On
reaching his palace, full of her charms and of passionate admiration for
them, he despatched a message to her, and a letter, by a female
attendant:--who wonders at it?--

'Ah! the gleaming, glancing arrows of a lovely woman's eye!
Feathered with her jetty lashes, perilous they pass us by:--
Loosed at venture from the black bows of her arching brow they part,
All too penetrant and deadly for an undefended heart.'

Now Lavanyavati, from the moment she saw the Prince, was hit with the
same weapon of love that wounded him; but upon hearing the message of
the attendant, she refused with dignity to receive his letter.

'I am my husband's,' she said, 'and that is my honor; for--

'Beautiful the Koil[10] seemeth for the sweetness of his song,
Beautiful the world esteemeth pious souls for patience strong;
Homely features lack not favor when true wisdom they reveal,
And a wife is fair and honored while her heart is firm and leal.'

What the lord of my life enjoins, that I do.'

'Is such my answer?' asked the attendant.

'It is,' said Lavanyavati.

Upon the messenger reporting her reply to the Prince, he was in despair.

'The God of the five shafts has hit me,' he exclaimed, 'and only her
presence will cure my wound.'

'We must make her husband bring her, then,' said the messenger.

'That can never be,' replied the Prince.

'It can,' replied the messenger--

'Fraud may achieve what force would never try:--
The Jackal killed the Elephant thereby.'

'How was that?' asked the Prince. The Slave related:--

THE STORY OF THE OLD JACKAL AND THE ELEPHANT

"In the forest of Brahma[11] lived an Elephant, whose name was
'White-front.' The Jackals knew him, and said among themselves, 'If this
great brute would but die, there would be four months' food for us, and
plenty, out of his carcase.' With that an old Jackal stood up, and
pledged himself to compass the death of the Elephant by his own wit.
Accordingly, he sought for 'White-front,' and, going up to him, he made
the reverential prostration of the eight members, gravely saluting him.

'Divine creature,' said he, 'vouchsafe me the regard of one look.'

'Who art thou?' grunted the Elephant,'and whence comest thou?'

'I am only a Jackal,' said the other; 'but the beasts of the forest are
convinced that it is not expedient to live without a king, and they have
met in full council, and despatched me to acquaint y