wealth, and kept up the reputation of the purse by going on with my
robberies, and so impoverished the rich misers, that some of them were
glad to receive a morsel of food from the beggars to whom they had
formerly refused help, and who were now enriched by my liberality.

Still no suspicion fell on me; but fate is all-powerful, and it was
decreed that I should be caught at last.

One night, sitting with my charming wife, intoxicated, partly with
wine and partly with her sweet caresses, I was seized with madness,
and started up, saying: "All the wealth in the city is not too much
for you; I will fill the house with jewels for your sake." Then, like
a furious elephant who has broken his chain, I rushed out, in spite of
her remonstrances, with a drawn sword, and attacked a body of police,
who happened to be passing. Shouting out, "This is the robber!" they
soon overpowered me, and I fell to the ground.

The shock sobered me at once, and all the horror of the situation into
which I had brought myself by my folly came into my mind. I thought to
myself, my intimacy with Dhanamittra is well known; suspicion will
fall on him; and unless I can turn it off, he, as well as my wife,
will be arrested to-morrow; and I quickly formed a plan by which they,
and perhaps I myself, might be saved. But no time was to be lost; and
as they were about to take me away, I called out to my wife's nurse,
Sringâlika, who had followed me, "Begone, old wretch! and tell that
vile harlot your mistress, and her paramour, Dhanamittra, that she
will never see her ornaments, nor he his magic purse again. I care not
for life, if I am revenged on those two wretches."

The old woman being remarkably quick-witted, at once understood my