"You are no serpent. Tell me who you are."

But Cloud-chariot continued to urge him: "Certainly I am a
serpent. What does the question mean? Continue your meal. What
fool would begin a thing and then stop?"

At that moment Shell-crest shouted from afar: "O Garuda, do not
commit a great and reckless crime. What madness is this? He is
not a serpent. I am the serpent."

And he ran between them and spoke again to the agitated bird: "O
Garuda, what madness is this? Do you not see that I have the hood
and the forked tongue? Do you not see how gentle his appearance
is?"

While he was speaking, Cloud-chariot's wife Sandal and his
parents hurried up. And when his parents saw how he was
lacerated, they wept aloud and lamented: "Alas, my son! Alas,
Cloud-chariot! Alas for my merciful darling, who gave his life for
others!"

But when they cried: "Alas, Garuda! How could you do this
thoughtless thing?" then Garuda was filled with remorse and
thought: "Alas! How could I be mad enough to eat a future
Buddha? This must be Cloud-chariot, who gives his life for others,
whose fame is trumpeted abroad through all the world. If he is
dead, I am a sinner, and ought to burn myself alive. Why does the
fruit of the poison-tree of sin taste sweet?"

While Garuda was thus deep in anxious thought,