“On payment of five hundred gold pieces, not otherwise.”
While thus speaking, Mahaushadha lighted a lamp close by the basket. But the father, thinking that it would not be well to let the matter become known, opened the door of the house, and had the basket taken up by a strong man and conveyed to his own house.
On the following day Mahaushadha gave a hundred gold pieces to the man to whom the house belonged, told him what his wife’s character was like, and advised [[161]]him, after such an occurrence as this, to be on his guard. The remaining four hundred pieces he made over to that Brahman, in order that he might go with them to the Kaksha forest, and present them to Viśākhā, the maiden whom he had asked in marriage.
“Tell them [he said] that I am no Brahman, but Mahaushadha, the chief minister of the king of Videha, and that I came in that guise only to carry out my quest. Therefore must they watch carefully over the maiden.”
Having in this way sent the gold pieces and a missive along with them, he himself went to King Janaka.
The Brahman went to the Kaksha forest, and delivered to Viśākhā the missive and three hundred of the pieces of gold. When Viśākhā perceived that she had not received the fourth hundred, she at once began looking under the bed.
“What are you looking for there?” he asked.
“Men have come from the court of the king,” she replied, “with orders to seize the malefactor, and have gone away. Therefore do I look for him who has not gone.”
Then she took some clay and said to that Brahman, “As I do not know who it is who has thus come here, I should like to try if a foot can go in here or not. So put your foot in here for a while.”
When the Brahman, to avoid being suspected, had inserted his foot into the clay, she suddenly drove a peg[11] into it.