But the father and son had not proceeded far before the son felt certain that his tyrant was in pursuit, and for protection he felt it necessary to change himself into a horse. At the same time, he charged his father to sell him at a neighbouring fair; but for no consideration to part with him to anyone in whose presence he should neigh, or paw the ground.
As the young man apprehended, so it happened. Shantil, the Yogin, tracked them, and discovering the disguise presented himself at the fair, and offered so large a sum that the father, dazzled by the sight of an enormous heap of gold, sold his son to his dreaded enemy.
In vain the poor horse had neighed, over and over, and pawed the ground to show his displeasure at the sale, but this only confirmed Shantil in his desire to have him, so that the money-loving father was prevailed upon to sell him.
Shantil then rides his captive back to his hermitage keeping him under severe restraint: but after a few days the imprisoned horse is able to make himself known to his brother, who loosens his bonds, when he bounds away.
Again Shantil pursues, and again the fugitive escapes. On this occasion assuming the form of a pigeon, he flies in at the open window of the king’s palace and is protected and concealed for a time by a lovely princess.
But Shantil was his master in the arts of magic, and every disguise was discovered. Upon his father he could not depend, for his father had sold him for gold. One refuge alone remained; Shantil had no power over Vetâls—the spirits which animate dead bodies, and despairing of other refuge, the young Brahman Yogin rushed into a corpse which was hanging on a tree in a public cemetery.
This obliged Shantil to seek for a man with sufficient nerve and resolution to go alone to the cemetery at night, cut down the body which contained the Vetâl into which his pupil had entered, and bring corpse and Vetâl to an appointed shrine, at which he would await them.
The man of dauntless courage and resolution was found in King Vikrama. Now, we do not know which Vikrama is meant, he of Ougein, A.D. 65, or Harsha Vikrama, of A.D. 500, but it does not signify, but the city is called Dhara, to the south of the river Godavery.
In Hindu poetry and fiction Vikrama continually figures as the representative of victorious courage. In this work he is described as handsome as the god of love, a devotee in religious worship, deferential to priests, hermits, and persons who disgusted with worldliness and contumely of relatives, had given themselves up to think of God.
He was skilled in sacred sciences; warlike, though merciful; a cherisher of the poor, and a comforter of his subjects; whom he loved as if they were his children.