e day he took a walk for pleasure about the hills with Friend-wealth,
and came to the seashore. There he saw great heaps of bones, and he
asked Friend-wealth: "What creatures did these heaps of bones belong
to?" His brother-in-law Friend-wealth said to the merciful prince:
"Listen, my friend. I will tell you the story briefly."

Long ago Kadru, the mother of the serpents, made a wager with her rival
Vinata, the mother of the great bird Garuda. She won the wager and
enslaved her rival. Now Garuda's anger continued even after he had
freed his mother from slavery. He kept going into the underworld where
Kadru's offspring, the serpents, live, to eat them. Some he killed,
others he crushed.

Then Vasuki, king of the serpents, feared that in time all would be
lost if the serpents were all to be slain thus. So he made an agreement
with Garuda. He said: "O king of birds, I will send one serpent every
day to the shore of the southern sea for you to eat. But you are never
to enter the underworld again. What advantage would it be to you if all
the serpents were slain at once?" And Garuda agreed, with an eye to his
own advantage.

Since that time Garuda every day eats the snake sent by Vasuki here on
the seashore. And these heaps of bones from the serpents that have been
eaten, have in time formed a regular mountain.

When Cloud-chariot heard this story from the lips of Friend-wealth, he
was deeply grieved and said: "My friend, wretched indeed is that king
Vasuki who deliberately sacrifices his own subjects to their enemy. He
is a coward. He has a thousand heads, yet could not find a single mouth
to say: O Garuda, eat me first.' How could he be so mean as to beg
Garuda to destroy his own race? Or how can Garuda, the heavenly bird,
do such a crime? Oh, insolent madness!"

So the noble Cloud-chariot made up his mind that he would use his poor
body that day to save the life of one serpent at least. At that moment
a door-keeper, sent by Friend-wealth's father, came to summon them
home. And Cloud-Chariot said: "Do you go first. I will follow." So he
dismissed Friend-wealth, and remained there himself.

As he walked about waiting for the thing he hoped for, he heard a
pitiful sound of weeping at a distance. He went a little way and saw
near a lofty rock a sorrowful, handsome youth. He was at that moment
abandoned by a creature that seemed to be a policeman, and was gently
persuading his old, weeping mother to return. And Cloud-cha