15. The night was as dark as the pit of a coal-mine, and as jet black as the wing of the black bee—bhramara; and the whole landscape lulled to sleep, appeared as the world lying submerged under ignorance. (Sleep and ignorance are twin brothers, and a reversion of the comparison of ignorance with sleep. Such reversed similes are not uncommon in oriental poetry, as that of the moon with the beauteous face &c.).
16. In this dreadful dead of night, she saw in the district inhabited by Kirátas, a prince and his minister, wandering together in the forest.
17. The prince was named Vikrama, and was as brave and valorous as his name and conduct implied him to be. He came out undaunted from within the city, after the citizens had fallen fast-asleep.
18. Karkatí beheld them roving in the forest with the weapons of their valour and fortitude, and searching the Vetálas infesting the neighbourhood.
19. Seeing them, she was glad to think that she had at last got her proper food; but wanted to know beforehand, whether they were ignorant folks or had any knowledge of their souls, or whether their weariness under the burthen of their bodies, had exposed them to the dangers of the darksome night.
20. The lives of the unlearned (said she), are verily for their perdition in this world and the next; it is therefore meet to put an end to these, rather than leave them to live to their peril in both worlds. (The earlier the ignorant die, the sooner do they rid themselves of their miseries and responsibilities).
21. The life of the untutored is death, without spiritual knowledge, and physical death is preferable; in as much as it saves the dying soul from its accumulation of sin. (Living in the sinful world is sin, unless it is averted by spiritual knowledge).
22. It is the primeval law ordained by our prime father—the lotus-born Brahmá, that ignorant souls and those without knowledge of their selves, should become the food of the heinous. (i.e. Of voracious and envious animals, which devour the body and not the soul).
23. Therefore there is no harm in my feeding upon these two persons, who have offered themselves for my food; because it is silliness to let slip, a ready prize or proffered gift from the hand. (A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Or a self-given gift is not to be lost).
24. But lest they should prove to be men of parts and good and great souls, I cannot in that case feel disposed of my own nature, to put an end to their valuable lives.