The ocean of story, being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's ...

EVIL OMENS DISREGARDED 141
and being bewildered with fear, and tormented with hunger
1
and pain, they related their history to them. Then the
chiefs of the gang, moved by pity, set them at liberty, and
said to them :
" Remain here and take food ;
do not be
terrified. You have arrived here on the eighth day of the
month, the day on which we worship Karttikeya, and so you
are our guests, and should have a share in our feast." 2
When
the bandits had said this they worshipped the goddess Durga,
3
and made the two Chandalas eat in their presence, and
having, as it happened, taken a fancy to them, they would
not let them out of their sight. Then they lived with those
bandits by robbing, and, thanks to their courage, became
eventually the chiefs of the gang.
And one night those chiefs marched with their followers
to plunder a large town, a favourite abode of Siva, which
some of their spies had selected for attack. Though they
saw an evil omen they did not turn back, and they reached
and plundered the whole city and the temple of the god.
Then the inhabitants cried to the god for protection, and
Siva in his wrath bewildered the bandits by making them
blind. And the citizens suddenly perceiving that, and thinking
that it was due to the favour of Siva, assembled, and
smote those bandits with sticks and stones. And Ganas, mov-
ing about invisibly, flung some of the bandits into ravines,
and dashed others to pieces against the ground.
And the people, seeing the two leaders, were about to put
them to death, but they immediately turned into bob-tailed
dogs. And in this transformation they suddenly remembered
their former birth, and danced in front of Siva, and fled to
him for protection. When the citizens, Brahmans, mer-
chants, and all, saw that, they were delighted at being free
from fear of robbers, and went laughing to their houses. And
then the delusion that had possessed those two beings, now
turned into dogs, disappeared, and they awoke to reality,
1 Dr Kern would read kshudduhkavaptasarnklesau.
India Office MSS. confirm this conjecture, so I have adopted it.
I find that all the three
2
Cf. Virgil's JEneid, viii, 172 et
seq.
3 All the three India Office MSS. and the Sanskrit College MS. read
svagra, which I have endeavoured to translate. Perhaps it may mean M before
they took any food themselves."