"O my mother![FN#3] what is this? at the time of marriage to have
an ass! What a miserable thing! What! will he give that angelic girl
in wedlock to a donkey?"

At length Gandharba-Sena, addressing the king in Sanskrit, urged
him to perform his promise. He reminded his future father-in-law
that there is no act more meritorious than speaking truth; that the
mortal frame is a mere dress, and that wise men never estimate the
value of a person by his clothes. He added that he was in that
shape from the curse of his sire, and that during the night he had
the body of a man. Of his being the son of Indra there could be no
doubt.

Hearing the donkey thus speak Sanskrit, for it was never known
that an ass could discourse in that classical tongue, the minds of
the people were changed, and they confessed that, although he had
an asinine form he was unquestionably the son of Indra. The king,
therefore, gave him his daughter in marriage.[FN#4] The
metamorphosis brings with it many misfortunes and strange
occurrences, and it lasts till Fate in the author's hand restores the
hero to his former shape and honours.

Gandharba-Sena is a quasi-historical personage, who lived in the
century preceding the Christian era. The story had, therefore,
ample time to reach the ears of the learned African Apuleius, who
was born A.D. 130.

The Baital-Pachisi, or Twenty-five (tales of a) Baital[FN#5] - a
Vampire or evil spirit which animates dead bodies - is an old and