16. He agreed to it, and said ‘give it then’; because his hunger was so pressing and his vitality was so much exhausted, that he could not decline to crave my flesh for his food. 17. Being then overpowered by affection and compassion I thought of putting an end to all my grief with my life, which became so intolerable to me at his excessive distress. 18. Being unable to endure the pain of my affection, I despaired of my own life; and resolved to resort to death, as my only friend at this last extremity. 19. I collected some wood, and heaped them together for my funeral pile, and having put it on fire, I saw it blaze as I wished. 20. As I was hastening to throw myself on this pile, I was immediately roused from my reverie by the sound of music proceeding from this palace, hailing me as king, and shouting my victory _jaya_. 21. I understood this conjurer had wrought this enchantment on me, and put me to all these imaginable troubles for so long a period. 22. Like the ignorant, I was subject to a hundred changes of fortune (which can never approach the wise). As the great and mighty King—Lavana, had been recapitulating and expostulating on the vicissitudes of fortune:— 23. The sorcerer suddenly disappeared from his sight, at which the courtiers looked around them with their staring eyes; and then addressed the king, saying:— 24. This man was no sorcerer, our liege lord! who had no mercenary views of his own in this; but it was a divine magic (theurgy), that was displayed to our lord, to represent the lot of humanity and the state of the world. 25. This world is evidently a creation of the mind, and the imaginary world is only a display of the infinite power of the Almighty. (It was a coinage of the brain, a stretch of the imagination which gives images to ideals). 26. These hundreds of worldly systems, display the multifarious powers of Omnipotence; which delude even the minds of the most wise, to believe in the reality of unrealities, as it were by the spell of magic. 27. This delusion being so potent on the minds of wise, it is no wonder, that our king would be overpowered by it, when all common minds are labouring under the same error. 28. This delusive magic was not spread over the mind, by any trick or art of the conjurer; who aimed at nothing more than his own gain, by the act of his sorcery. (It is the divine will, which spreads the illusion alike on all minds). 29. They that love money, never go away of themselves without getting something: therefore we are tossed on the waves of doubt (_i.e._ doubtful) to take him for a sorcerer. 30. Vasishtha said:—Ráma! though I am sitting here at this moment, before you and others of this assembly; yet I am quite sensible of the truth of this story, which is no fiction like the tale of the boy I have told you before, nor is it any coining or hearsay of mine.