Then seeing thousands of deer and hundreds of lions lying
in the forest, the king ascertained his course. And on the way were
scattered trees pulled down by the wind caused by the thighs of that
hero endued with the speed of the wind as he rushed after the deer. And
proceeding, guided by those marks, to a spot filled with dry winds and
abounding in leafless vegetables, brackish and devoid of water, covered
with thorny plants and scattered over with gravel, stumps and shrubs and
difficult of access and uneven and dangerous, he saw in a mountain
cavern his younger brother motionless, caught in the folds of that
foremost of snakes."
SECTION CLXXIX
Vaisampayana continued, "Yudhishthira, finding his beloved brother
coiled by the body of the serpent, said these words: 'O son of Kunti,
how hast thou come by this misfortune! And who is this best of serpents
having a body like unto a mountain mass?' Bhimasena said, 'O worshipful
one, this mighty being hath caught me for food. He is the royal sage
Nahusha living in the form of a serpent.' Yudhishthira said, 'O
longlived one, do thou free my brother of immeasurable prowess; we will
give thee some other food which will appease thy hunger.' The serpent
said, 'I have got for diet even this son of a king, come to my mouth of
himself. Do thou go away. Thou shouldst not stay here. (If thou
remainest here) thou too shall be my fare to-morrow. O mighty-armed one,
this is ordained in respect of me, that he that cometh unto my place,
becometh my food and thou too art in my quarter.
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