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of the horrible witch. The man on the gallows told them that there was no easy way of escape unless of course the Sailaka Yaksa could be persuaded to help them. He further told them that this Yaksa usually lived in a temple that was dedicated to him and the temple could be seen in the eastern grove. He usually assumed the form of a horse. The Yaksa came there on the fourteenth and the eighth of every month and also on the full moon and new moon nights. It was his practice to ask loudly, "Whom shall I save? Whom shall I protect?" If the brothers happened to be present in the temple on any one of these nights, at the proper time, the Yaksa could be propitiated with plenty of flowers. They were further instructed to fall on their knees before him and wait with folded hands till he asked his usual questions. They should then say that they themselves needed to be saved and protected. The man on the gallows stressed the point that the Yaksa alone was capable of rescuing them and if they failed to win his sympathies, he did not know of any other method of securing an escape and to what miserable plight the handsome bodies of the two brothers would be reduced by that woman, was quite beyond his imagination.
Since that was one of the appointed days of the Yaksa to visit his temple in the eastern grove, the two brothers rushed towards it. They had a holy bath in a lake around there, plucked all sorts of lotuses and went to the temple. When the Yaksa appeared there they bowed to him and worshipped him with the flowers that they had brought. They fell upon their knees and requested the Yaksa's kind help. The Yaksa looked at them with great sympathy and assured them of his protection. He would also see to it that they crossed the Lavana sea with him but he warned them that the Ratnadvi pa woman, ferocious as she was, would put all sorts of obstacles in their way. She would for instance speak to them in sweet, agreeable and amorous words to tempt them and mix them up with harsh and pathetic words. The Yaksa warned them that they must not pay any regard to whatever she said nor to the manner in which she said it. If they showed any such inclination, he would quickly throw them away from his back. Their safety depended entirely on their remaining completely unaffected by whatever she said or did. The two brothers promised to carry out all that the Yaksa
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