on
me. Surely, he is no serpent, but some great spirit. I will stop eating
him and ask him."

But while he reflected, Cloud-chariot said: "O king of birds, why do
you stop? There is still some flesh and blood on me, and I see that you
are not satisfied. Pray continue to eat."

When the king of birds heard these remarkable words, he said: "You are
no serpent. Tell me who you are."

But Cloud-chariot continued to urge him: "Certainly I am a serpent.
What does the question mean? Continue your meal. What fool would begin
a thing and then stop?"

At that moment Shell-crest shouted from afar: "O Garuda, do not commit
a great and reckless crime. What madness is this? He is not a serpent.
I am the serpent."

And he ran between them and spoke again to the agitated bird: "O
Garuda, what madness is this? Do you not see that I have the hood and
the forked tongue? Do you not see how gentle his appearance is?"

While he was speaking, Cloud-chariot's wife Sandal and his parents
hurried up. And when his parents saw how he was lacerated, they wept
aloud and lamented: "Alas, my son! Alas, Cloud-chariot! Alas for my
merciful darling, who gave his life for others!"

But when they cried: "Alas, Garuda! How could you do this thoughtless
thing?" then Garuda was filled with remorse and thought: "Alas! How
could I be mad enough to eat a future Buddha? This must be
Cloud-chariot, who gives his life for others, whose fame is trumpeted
abroad through all the world. If he is dead, I am a sinner, and ought
to burn myself alive. Why does the fruit of the poison-tree of sin
taste sweet?"

While Garuda was thus deep in anxious thought, Cloud-chariot saw his
relatives gathered, fell down, and died from the pain of his wounds.
Then, while his grief-stricken parents were loudly lamenting, while
Shell-crest was accusing himself, Sandal looked up to heaven and, in a
voice stammering with tears, reproached the goddess Gauri who had
graciously given her this husband: "Oh, Mother! You told me that the
fairy prince should be my husband, but it is my fate that you spoke
falsely."

Then Gauri appeared in a visible form, and said: "Daughter, my words
are not false." And she sprinkled Cloud-chariot with nectar from a jar.
And straightway he stood up alive, unhurt and more beautiful than
before.

As they all bent low in worship, and Cloud-chariot rose only to bend
again, the goddess said: "My son, I am pleased with your gift of your
own body. With my