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BHADRASINGH
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to save your valuable life If, however, tbat is not acceptable to you, then, as an alternative, I suggest that you play with the king at dice, and with all my brabminical power, I promise to help you so that you will win for yourself all his wealth and power Thus you may be relieved of the present ordeal and enjoy a kingdom If none of these proposals be acceptable to you, then, I have a third one too, which is that I myself and my own wife are prepared to sacrifice our own life in order to save you both We will confess and take on ourselves the crime for which you have been charged We are after all poor people, always in distress and misery Our exit from the world would make no difference But if you live, you will be able to do great things in this world I hope, you will agree to this at least and will not bother much about our life”
The king and the queen thanked the brahmin for his proposals to save their life, but they regretted inability to accept any one of them Said they,
"Sır! We believe in non-violence, and to us all life has the same value Our heart docs not approve that we save our own life by sacrificing your life Life is after all short and it must end some day To save this, we won't agree to eat meat or play at dice either Nor do we agree to your readiness to confess the crime which will be indulging in falsehood. After all, this body will go some day and it is good that the chance for it has arrived to us Let us go out when we are firm in our faith and have not allowed ourselves to bend or to submit"
All the efforts of the god thus ended in failure He could not make Bhadrasingh to deviate from truth and virtue As now the king and the queen were hanged, the whole situation changed in a twinkling of the eye The execution, the scaffold, the rope—all disappeared and King Bhadrasingh was seated on his throne in his own kingdom, with the queen at his side Prince Kuldipsingh stood with his folded hands. The king and the queen did not know if the whole thing was a dream or a reality Now, the god appeared before the king in his own form and begged to be excused for the test he J-10
