“Now,” thought the Future Buddha, “I’ll test the king!” He went and passed the night in the king’s garden, and on the following day, having put on beautiful garments, entered the city on his round for alms. At that moment that king, that betrayer of friends, seated on the back of his gloriously adorned state elephant, accompanied by a large retinue, was making a rightwise circuit of the city. Seeing the Future Buddha even from afar, he thought: “Here’s that false ascetic, come to live with me and eat his fill! That he may not make known in the midst of this company the service he has rendered me, I’ll straightway have his head cut off!” He looked at his men. Said they: “What shall we do, your majesty?” Said the king: “Here’s a false ascetic, come to ask me for something or other, I suppose. Without so much as giving that false ascetic, that bird of evil omen, a chance to look at me, take that fellow, bind his arms behind his back, conduct him out of the city, beating him at every cross-roads, cut off his head in the place of execution, and impale his body on a stake!” “Very well,” said the king’s men in assent. They bound the Great Being, guiltless as he was, and started to conduct him to the place of execution, beating him at every cross-roads. The Future Buddha, wherever they beat him, uttered no lament, “Women! men!” but unperturbed, uttered the following stanza: True is this saying of some men of the world: “Driftwood is worth more than some men!” [_Native gloss_: A stick of wood washed up on dry land is of some use: it will cook food; it will warm those who are shivering with the cold; it will remove dangerous objects. But an ingrate is worse than useless.] Thus, wherever they beat him, did he utter this stanza. Hearing this, wise men who stood by said: “But, monk, what is the trouble between you and our king? have you done him some good turn?” Then the Future Buddha told them the whole story, saying: “I alone, by pulling this man out of a mighty flood, have brought suffering upon myself. I speak as I do because I keep thinking: ‘Alas! I have not heeded the words of wise men of old!’” Hearing this, Warriors and Brahmans and others, residents of the city, became enraged. Said they: “This king here, this betrayer of friends, has not the slightest conception of the virtues of this embodiment of the virtues, this man who has granted him the boon of his own life! What have we to gain through him! Capture him!” And rising in all quarters, they slew him, even as he sat on the back of the elephant, by hitting him with arrows and spears and rocks and clubs. And laying hold of his feet, they dragged him and threw him back of the moat. And conferring the ceremonial sprinkling on the Future Buddha, they established him in the kingdom. The Future Buddha ruled righteously.