At last all was ready : the ground was cleared and a platform raised. The pyre was draped, and the banners were hung. Multi-tiered umbrellas marked the significance of the place. Horses and bulls, unaware of impending death, strained and snorted at their stakes, impatient for release. Canda sat apart from his fellow victims, but all awaited the same fate. Amid the company of the mourners assembled was Prince Canda's wife. Realizing that the king would forever be deaf to her appeals, she called upon the gods. Clasping her hands as she walked, she beseeched the gods to heed her. "We on earth," she said, "can do no more. It is clear that even the spirits here are blind to justice or else in league with falsity and guile. I therefore raise my plea to you on high to end this sacrifice forthwith before the innocent fall dead on these defiled grounds.