ention than as
if they were not there, seeing absolutely nothing before him but the
eyes of Chamu that were starting from his head, fell upon him all
together in a body, like a swarm of bees, and stung him, as it were, to
death, exactly as they chose, cutting him to pieces with swords and
knives. But for all that they did, they could not loose his hands, which
remained just as they were, locked like an iron ring around the throat
to which they clung, as if his will still animated them, even after he
was dead.

So it came about, just as he predicted; and those two very bitter
enemies went together, and as it were, hand-in-hand, into the other
world. And Chamu, with his master Atirupa, went into other bodies. But
the soul of Babhru entered, for his crime, into that body of a camel
lying yonder, which perished, as I told thee to begin with, in the
desert long ago.

* * * * *

And then, the Moony-crested stopped. And after a while, the Daughter of
the Snow said softly: Alas! for these unhappy mortal women, who suffer
at the hands of evil-minded lovers, such intolerable wrong, and woe. And
yet, as I think, poor Babhru deserved rather to be forgiven altogether,
or even to be actually rewarded, rather than punished by the body of a
camel, for treating those two ill-doers even better than they merited,
for such outrageous crime.

Then said Maheshwara, looking at her with affection: O Daughter of the
Snow, thou resemblest every other woman, judging by thy own pity and
compassion, and the emotion aroused in thy soul by the particular
misfortune of a solitary case, not taking into any consideration the
constitution of the world. And this is a merit and a beauty in thee, and
yet it is altogether wrong. For Babhru suffered as a consequence of acts
committed in a former birth, the circumstances of which thou dost not
know. And moreover, even so, he was culpable and presumptuous, in taking
on himself a vengeance to which even Aranyani did not urge him, not
knowing that punishment far more terrible than his was waiting for those
criminals, without his interference. And he should have left Aranyani's
vindication to the deity, who knew what was necessary far better than
himself, and had his eye upon it all. For there is no retribution so
just, or so sure, or so adequate, or awful, as that which evil-doers lay
upon themselves, in the form of their own ill-deeds, which dog them like
a shadow clinging to