And they swarmed up the perpendicular sides of Sineru like so many ants!
When Sakka heard the cry, “The Titans are up!” he went down the great deep to meet them, and fought with them from the sky. But he was worsted in the fight, and began to flee away along the summit of the southern vault of heaven in his famous Chariot of Glory a hundred and fifty leagues in length.[321]
Now as his chariot went rapidly down the great deep, it passed along the Silk Cotton Tree Forest, and along its route the silk cotton trees were cut down one after another like mere palmyra palms, and fell into the great deep. And as the young ones of the Wingéd Creatures tumbled over and over into the great deep, they burst forth into mighty cries. And Sakka asked his charioteer, Mātali—
“What noise is this, friend Mātali? How pathetic is that cry!”
“O Lord! as the Silk Cotton Tree Forest falls, torn up by the swiftness of your car, the young of the Wingéd Creatures, quaking with the fear of death, are shrieking all at once together!”
Then answered the Great Being, “O my good Mātali! let not these creatures suffer on our account. Let us not, for the sake of supremacy, put the living to pain. Rather will I, for their sake, give my life as a sacrifice to the Titans. Stop the car!”
And so saying, he uttered the stanza—
“Let the Nestlings in the Silk Cotton Wood
Escape, O Mātali, our chariot pole.
Most gladly let me offer up my life: