Verse 16

¹²Now once a certain chief of the low-born, wanting a child, was offering a man as the beast to Bhadra Kali. ¹³That beast got away by fate, and his men ran about after its track in the night, at the hour of deep dark, when everything was covered over; and not finding the beast, by a turn of chance they came upon the son of the first of the Angirases, seated in the hero's posture in the fields, keeping deer and boar and the rest off them. ¹⁴They looked him over, found nothing wanting in his marks, took their master's work as good as done, tied him with a cord and led him to the house of Candika, their faces open with delight.

¹⁵Then the men bathed him after their own rule, wrapped him in new cloth, made him ready with ornaments and paste and garlands and the mark on his brow and the rest, fed him, and with incense and lamps and garlands and parched grain and shoots and sprouts and fruit for the offering, in the manner of a slaughter, and with a great noise of singing and praise and drums large and small, they seated the man-beast before Bhadra Kali. ¹⁶Then the priest of the low-born king, meaning to worship the goddess Bhadra Kali with the liquor of the man-beast's blood, took up the sword she had been given with the words for it, a terrible thing and honed to an edge.