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TRANSLATION
309
239. Then that brutal fellow beat me mercilessly with heavy blows of fist and stave. But when they were asleep through my deserts a dog came there,
240. and this loving friend ate through the thongs which bound me and when my body was freed I went up to the village chieftain.
241. I seized his sharp sword and unsheathed it and made that evil-minded woman get up in such a way that the robber chieftain did not get up too.
242. 'If
you call out, you wretch, then with this sharp sword I will cut your head off,' I said and, putting her in front,
243. set off at once with all speed towards my own village. When the whole night had passed and I had gone far, 244. then in fear of the robbers I hid in a bamboo thicket. Meanwhile the chieftain came up with his gang of ruffians.
245. He knew our path from the track of feet, and still more, from seeing threads which had been dropped by my wife as she went along.
246. He rent me with blows of his sword which caused intense pain and nailed me to the ground with nails in the five limbs.
247. Then he took her and went back. But a monkey came up to me who had abandoned hope of life and, when he saw me,
248. in that state, fell on the ground with his eyes closed in a swoon. After a little while he regained consciousness and went somewhere else.
249. Then he hurried back bringing at once two healing herbs. With one herb he extracted the nails from me and
250. with the other he healed my wounds. Afterwards he wrote characters on the ground with his hand and recounted his own story.
251. 'I was formerly a physician's son in your village named Siddhakarman. Dying, I became by the power of karma an ape.
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