( The last story in the Vikram Vettala Tales )

In the Vindhya Mountain there was a city named Dharmapur, whose king called Mahabul. He was a mighty warrior, well-skilled in the art of war and always lead his own armies to the field. He encourage his men to single combats, and carefully train them to gymnastics. Many of the wrestlers and boxers were so strong that they often beat all the extremities of the antagonist into his body, or break his back, or rend him into two pieces.

He promise heaven to those who shall die in the front of battle, and he have them taught certain dreadful expressions of abuse to be interchanged with the enemy when commencing the contest. Honours will be conferred on those who never turn their backs in an engagement.

But one day ,King Mahabul was attacked by the white Pariahs, who, as usual,employ against him gold, fire, and steel. With gold they will win over his best men, and persuade them openly to desert when the army is drawn out for battle. They use the terrible " fire weapon, " large and small tubes, which discharge flame and smoke, and bullets.And instead of using swords and shields, they fix daggers to the end of their tubes, and thrust with them like lances.

Mahabul, distinguished by valour and military skill, out of his city to meet the white foe. Then come the footmen armed with fire-tubes, swords and shields, spears and daggers, clubs, and bludgeons. They followed by fighting men on horses and oxen, on camels and elephants. The musicians, the water-carriers, and lastly the stores on carriages, will bring up the rear.

The white outcastes came forward in a long thin red thread, and vomiting fire like the Jwalamukhi. King Mahabul receive them with his troops formed in a circle; another division was in the shape of a half-moon; a third like a cloud, whilst others represent a lion, a tiger, a carriage, a lily, a giant, and a bull. But as the elephants all turn round when they felt the fire, Mahabul, being thus without resource,enter his palanquin, and accompanied by his queen and their only daughter, escape at night-time into the forest.

The unfortunate three deserted by their small party, and live for a time on jungle food, fruits and roots; they even were compelled to eat game. After some days they come sight of a village, which Mahabul enter to obtain victuals. There the wild Bhils, famous for long years, come up, and surrounding the party, bid the Raja throw down his arms.Mahabul tried to protect his family by fighting back. The conflict continued for three hours, and many of the Bhils were slained: at length a shaft cleaved the king's skull, he fall dead, and one of the wild men come up and cut off his head. When the queen and the princess saw Mahabul fell dead, they returned to the forest weeping . They thus escaped the Bhils, and after journeying on for four miles, at length they sat down wearied, and revolve many thoughts in their minds.

The day dawns. The white Pariahs have done their usual work. They have cut off the hands of some, the feet ;and heads of others, whilst many they have crushed into shapeless masses, or scattered in pieces upon the ground. The field is strewed with corpses, the river runs red, so that the dogs and jackals swim in blood.Such will be the scenes acted in the fair land of Bharat. Perchance two white outcastes, father and son, who with a party of men are scouring the forest and slaying everything, fall upon the path which the women have taken shortly before. Their attention is attracted by footprints leading towards a place full of tigers, leopards, bears, wolves, and wild dogs. And they are utterly confounded when, after inspection, they discover the sex of the wanderers.

"How is it," shall say the father, "that the footprints of mortals are seen in this part of the forest ? " The son shall reply, "Sir, these are the marks of women's feet: a man's foot would not be so small." "It is passing strange," rejoin the elder white Pariah, "but thou speakest truth. Certainly such a soft and delicate foot cannot belong to anyone but a woman."

"They have only just left the track," continue the son, " and look this is the step of a married woman. See how she treads on the inside of her sole, because of the bending of her ankles." And the younger white outcaste all point to the queen's footprints. "Come, let us search the forest for them," shall cry the father, " Look at the other, it is much longer; the toes have scarcely touched the ground, whereas the marks of the heels are deep. Of a truth this must be the married woman." And the elder white outcaste shallpoint to the footprints of the princess. "Then," shall reply the son, who admires the shorter foot, " let us first seek them, and when we find them, give to me her who has the short feet, and take the other to wife thyself"

Having made this agreement they  proceed on their way, and presently they found the women lying on the earth, half dead with fatigue and fear. Their legs and feet are scratched and torn by brambles, their ornaments have fallen off, and their garments are in strips. The two white outcastes find little difficulty, the first surprise over, in persuading the unhappy women to follow them home, and with great delight, conformably to their arrangement, each takes up his prize on his horse and rides back to the tents. The son takes the queen, and the father the princess.

In due time two marriages come to pass; the father, according to agreement, married the long foot, and the son takes to wife the short foot. And after the usual interval, the elder white outcaste, who had married the daughter, rejoices at the birth of a boy, and the younger white outcaste, who had married the mother, is gladdened by the sight of a girl.

Now then, by my feet and your head, O warrior king Vikram, answer me one question. What relationship will there be between the children of the two white Pariahs ? Vikram's brow waxed black as a charcoal-burner's when he again heard the most irreverent oath ever proposed to mortal king. The question presently attracted his attention, and he turned over the Baital's words in his head, confusing the ties of filiality, brotherhood, and relationship, and connection in general. "Hem ! " said the warrior king, at last perplexed, and remembering, in his perplexity, that he had better hold his tongue-- " ahem !" " I think your majesty spoke ?" asked the Vampire, in an inquisitive and insinuating tone of voice. "Hem ! " ejaculated the monarch. The Baital held his peace for a few minutes, coughing once or twice impatiently. He suspected that the extraordinary nature of this last tale, combined with the use of the future tense, had given rise to a taciturnity so unexpected in the warrior king. He therefore asked if Vikram the Brave would not like to hear another little anecdote.

"This time the king did not even say " hem ! " Having walked at an unusually rapid pace, he distinguished at a distance the fire kindled by the devotee, and he hurried towards it with an effort which left him no breath wherewith to speak, even had he been so inclined.

"Since your majesty is so completely dumb foundered by it, perhaps this acute young prince may be able to answer my question ? " insinuated the Baital, after a few minutes of anxious suspense.

But Dharma Dhwaj answered not a syllable.It gives mind some spin without much conclusion and King Vikram could not answer. Thus ending the cycle of Vampire telling the stories.