“What is the matter, little creature?” said the hermit, picking up the white bird and holding him gently in his hands.
“I am pursued!” gasped the Prince, “my life is in great danger. I pray you, good master, hear me, and do what I bid you, that my life may be saved!” He paused to take a breath, and in that moment there came a knocking at the door of the cave which had swung to after the Prince had entered.
“Even now,” continued the Prince, [[8]]“there stand seven men without, clothed in white. Before you open the door to them, let me change myself into the largest bead in that chaplet which you wear around your neck. When they come in, they will ask you for it. Give them the beads, but before you do so, break the string on which they are strung so that they will fall to the ground. If you do this, I can do the rest by my power of magic.”
Meanwhile the knocking upon the door grew louder and louder, and so, hastily promising to do as the Prince had said, Nagarguna opened it. Without stood seven men with white hair and long white cotton robes. Very old and wise they looked, but their eyes were wicked.
“What would you, sirs?” said Nagarguna. They stepped into the cave and, looking sharply around, spied the chaplet of beads about the hermit’s neck. The white dove, of course, had vanished by this time.
“I pray you,” said the foremost of the [[9]]seven men, “let us have the chaplet that hangs about your neck. We have long heard the fame of you, have come from afar to see you, and would greatly like to carry away a token from you.”
“Gladly will I give it to you,” said the hermit, but in slipping the chaplet from his neck he managed to break the string, and the beads went clattering to the floor, all but the largest one, which still clung to the string. And all the little beads became worms and wriggled upon the ground, and the seven magicians changed themselves into seven large fowls and began pecking at the worms until they were all eaten up. Then, at length, the largest bead fell, and scarcely had it touched the earth before it became a youth, the Prince himself, who stood straight, tall and fair, with a staff in his hands. With this he slew the seven fowls quickly, one by one, and cast them out of the cave, where they became the dead bodies of the seven wicked magicians. Then he turned back, weary and exhausted, [[10]]into the cave, but Nagarguna looked upon him coldly and with displeasure.
“You have done evil, my son,” said he, “for you have taken life, even the lives of seven men; and it will not easily be forgiven you.”
The Prince bowed his head humbly before Nagarguna. “Truly,” said he, “I did not wish the death of these men, but they wickedly sought my life. Only to defend myself from a like fate did I lift my hand to slay another.”
“Even so,” replied Nagarguna, “and well I know your heart is not evil, and that only because you knew of no better way to defend yourself did you resort to barbarous killing. But by knowledge, my son, are all good things accomplished, all wrong ones avoided. Had your knowledge been perfect, you would not have found it necessary to take the life of any living creature, even in self-defense.”