The gong was striking the mysterious hour of midnight as the king
and the young prince approached the principal gate. And they were
pushing through it when a monstrous figure rose up before them
and called out with a fearful voice, "Who are ye, and where are ye
going ? Stand and deliver your names!"

"I am Raja Vikram," rejoined the king, half choked with rage, "and
I am come to mine own city. Who art thou that darest to stop or
stay me?"

"That question is easily answered," cried Prithwi Pala the giant, in
his roaring voice; "the gods have sent me to protect Ujjayani. If
thou be really Raja Vikram, prove thyself a man: first fight with
me, and then return to thine own."

The warrior king cried "Sadhu!" wanting nothing better. He girt his
girdle tight round his loins, summoned his opponent into the empty
space beyond the gate, told him to stand on guard, and presently
began to devise some means of closing with or running in upon
him. The giant's fists were large as watermelons, and his knotted
arms whistled through the air like falling trees, threatening fatal
blows. Besides which the Raja's head scarcely reached the giant's
stomach, and the latter, each time he struck out, whooped so
abominably loud, that no human nerves could remain unshaken.

At last Vikram's good luck prevailed. The giant's left foot slipped,
and the hero, seizing his antagonist's other leg, began to trip him
up. At the same moment the young prince, hastening to his parent's
assistance, jumped viciously upon the enemy's naked toes. By their