29. Though he called and accosted every body, yet he got no answer from any one; as the hollow sounding reed, is never returned with a reply by any of the passers by. 30. They all said to one another, that the guilt of their long association with the Chandála, cannot be expiated by any other penance, than by the act of burning themselves alive on the funeral pile in the form of self-immolation. 31. Being so resolved, the ministers and citizens all joined together, and raised for themselves piles with heaps of dry wood. 32. These being lighted, blazed all about the ground like stars in the sky, and the city was filled with loud wailings of the people all around. 33. The wailing wives were shedding showers of tears with their loud and piteous cries; and the weeping people were heaving their heavy groans with their choked voices, all about the burning furnaces. 34. The plaintive cries of the dependants of the self-cremating ministers, rose as the swell of whistling winds amidst the forest trees. 35. The bodies of great Bráhmans, that were burnt on the piles, sent forth their fatted fumes in the air; which were scattered about by the winds, and overcast the landscape as with a portentous mist. 36. The winds bore aloft and spread far and wide in the open sky, the stench of the burning fat and flesh of men; which invited flocks of the flying fowls of the air to the feast, and the disk of the sun was hid under the wide extending shadow of the winged tribe. 37. The flame of the burning pile, borne by the winds to the sky, burned as a conflagration on high; and the flying sparks of fire scattered in the air, appeared as falling meteors blazing in the horizon. 38. Here the helpless boys were crying for their ornaments being robbed by atrocious robbers, owing to their want of guardians; and there the citizens were threatened with the loss both of their lives and properties by the dacoits. 39. On one side the people were seen to lament the loss of their relatives (in the destructive fire); on the other were the bands of thieves, lurking and prying unobserved about the houses for plunder and booty. 40. As adverse fate brought on this direful change on the devoted city; its horrified inhabitants remained in mute amazement; as on the last doom of nature. 41. Gavala, the Chandála prince, whose mind was purified and whose manners were refined in the society of the great men of the palace; witnessed the sad catastrophe of the state, and mourned in himself with a pensive heart. 42. It is all owing to me, said he, that all this woe has befallen on this state; and that time has brought on the untimely dissolution of the doomsday; both on this realm and the royal family and its ministerial officers. 43. What is the good of this miserable life of mine? My death is a blessing to me than living in this wretched state. It is better for the mean and base to die away, than live to be reviled by others.