75. It lies in the glandular vessel of the faeces, with its mouth placed downward; and takes at pleasure any form, it likes to assume as its prerogative. 76. It is the nature of the malicious, to show the pervertedness of their hearts by doing injury to others; as it is characteristic of the base people to raise a row for their pleasure, and not for any gain or good to themselves. 77. The miserly think much of their gain of even a single cowry: so deeprooted is the avaricious selfishness of human nature. (All little gain is no gain, compared with the wants of men). 78. It was but for a particle of blood, or as much as could be picked out by the point of a pin, that the colic Súchí was bent on the destruction of men: so the wise are fools in their own interests (and so do cut-throats kill others for a single groat). 79. How great is my master-stroke, says the needle, that from stitching the shreds of cloth, have come to the pitch of piercing the hearts of men; so be it and I am happy at my success. 80. As the rust of the lazy needle passes off in sewing, without being rubbed with dust; so must it take the rust, unless it is put in the action of piercing the patient and passive shreds. (The rolling stone gathers no moss). 81. The unseen and airy darts of fate, are as fatal as the acts of the cruel Vísúchi; though both of them have their respite at short intervals of their massacres. 82. The needle is at rest after its act of sewing is done; but the wicked are not satisfied, even after their acts of slaughter are over. 83. It dives in the dirt and rises in the air, it flies with the wind and lies down wherever it falls; it sleeps in the dust and hides itself at home and in the inside, and under the cloths and leaves. It dwells in the hand and ear-holes, in lotuses and heaps of woolen stuffs. It is lost in the holes of houses, in clefts of wood and underneath the ground. (Compare the adventures of a pin in Gay’s Fables). 84. Válmíki added:—As the sage was speaking in this manner, the sun went down in the west, and the day departed to its evening service. The assembly broke after mutual salutations, to perform their sacred ablution; and joined again on the next morning, with the rising beams of the sun to the royal palace. CHAPTER LXXI. REMORSE OF SÚCHÍ. Argument. Remorse of Karkatí at her transformation to a Needle from her former gigantic form. Vasishtha continued:—After the carnivorous fiend—Karkatí, had feasted for a long period on the flesh and blood of human kind; she found her insatiable voracity to know no bounds, and never to be satisfied with anything. 2. She used to be satisfied erewhile, with a drop of blood in her form of the needle; and she now became sorry, at the loss of the insatiable thirst and appetite of her former state.