beseeched him, saying, "O my Lord! Indeed I did not intend to eat you. Grant me my life!"

"Well, well! step down into the pond, and put me in there."

And he turned round and stepped down into the pond, and placed the crab on the mud at its edge. But the crab cut through its neck as clean as one would cut a lotus-stalk with a hunting-knife, and then only entered the water!

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When the Genius who lived in the Varaṇa-tree saw this strange affair, he made the wood resound with his plaudits, uttering in a pleasant voice the verse—