But when they beheld Hoonamunta, how he tore off roofs, and pelted them with tiles,--how he climbed to the tops of pagodas, and jangled the sacred bells,--how he laid his shoulder to the city walls and overthrew them, so that the noise of their fall was as the roar of the breakers on the far-off coast of Lunka when the Typhoon blows,--then they cried, "A demon! a fiend from the halls of Yama!" and they gave chase with a mighty uproar,--the gooroos, and the yogees, and the jugglers going first. Then Hoonamunta took counsel with his cunning; and he came down and stood in the midst of the angry people, and asked, "What would you with me? and where is this demon you pursue?" But they cried, "Hear him, how he mocks us! Hear him, how he flouts us!" and they dragged him into the presence of Rawunna, the king. And when the giant would have questioned him, who he was, and whence he came, and what his mission, he only mocked, and mimicked the fee-faw-fumness of Rawunna's tones, and said, "Lo! This beggar goes a-foot, but his words ride in a palanquin!" And the king said, "I have been foolish, I have been weak, to waste words on this kafir. Am not I a mighty monarch? Am not I a terrible giant? Let him be cast out!" And again Hoonamunta mocked him, saying, "His insanity is past! fetch him the rice-pounder that he may gird himself! fetch him the gong that he may cover his feet!" And Hoonamunta would have sat on the throne, on Rawunna's right hand; but Rawunna thrust him off, and cursed him. So Hoonamunta took his tail in his hand, and pulled and pulled; and the tail grew, and grew,--a fathom, a furlong, a whole coss. And Hoonamunta coiled it on the floor, a lofty coil, on the right hand of the throne, higher and higher, till it overlooked the golden cushion of the king; and Hoonamunta laughed. Then Rawunna turned him to his counsellors, and said, "What shall we do with this audacious fellow?" And with one voice all the counsellors cried, "Burn his tremendous tail!" And the king commanded:-- "Let all the dwarfs of Lunka Bring rags from near and far; Call all the dwarfs of Lunka To soak them all in tar!" So they went, and brought as many rags as ten strong giants could lift, and a thousand maunds of tar. And they soaked the rags in the tar, even as Kawunna had commanded, and bound them all at once on the tremendous tail of Hoonamunta. And when they had done this, the king said, "Lead him forth, and light him!" And they led him forth into the great Midaun, hard by the triple pagoda; and they lighted his tail with a torch. And immediately the flames leaped to the skies, and the smoke filled all the city. Then Hoonamunta broke away from his captors, and with a loud laugh started on his fiery race,--over house-tops and hay-ricks, through close bazaars and dry rice-fields, through the porticoes of palaces and the porches of pagodas,--kindling a roaring conflagration as he went.