विक्रम चरित (उज्जैन सम्राट् विक्रमादित्य - पराक्रम, न्याय एवं ३२ पुतलियों की कथा सटीक)

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from the most severe and painful agonies. I will recount
it to you if you will favor me with your attention." He
then took his seat near the bird, and commenced the fol-
lowing
TALE OF THE ALLIGATOR AND THE TRAVELLER.
In one of the hottest periods of the year, while the sun
was at its height, an alligator, extremely exhausted by the
intensity of the heat, was unable to go back to the place
whence he had been tempted to rove to a distance on the
banks of the river Gunga. He was there observed lying, as
if in pain, by a traveller who chanced to be passing that
way at the time. Observing the man, the alligator addressed
him in these words :—"Oh, my honest friend, you will
render me an incalculable service, and one for which you
will place me under a deep debt of gratitude, if you will
plunge me into the river which you see before you. You
will thus save my life, and I shall feel most thankful to you.
The Almighty will reward you for your labour." The tra-
veller replied, that should he do him this good office, he
doubted whether the alligator, when he once found the man
in the water with him, would allow him to escape with life.
"Do not, my friend, entertain the least fear on that point,"
said the alligator, "for I swear to you you shall come to
no harm." The traveller, placing implicit reliance on
the alligator's word, and being at the same time moved
with compassion at his sufferings, after wrapping him
up in a cloth, raised him from the recumbent posture in
which he found him, and took him up on his head. In this
way he entered the water, and when he had proceeded a -
short distance, the alligator inquired the depth of that part of
the river where they then were, and on the reply being given
that the water reached only up to the traveller's waist, the
alligator said, "Convey me a little further." The deluded
man went on as he was desired, without attaching any im-
portance to the interrogatory that had been addressed to
him, and which might have given rise to suspicions of no