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surround her with a guard of women; so bow can she become unchaste, as she can never see men?" Having formed this determination, the king that very day rashly married that Rájadattá, whom Śilavatí bestowed upon, him. And after he had married her, and had been received with the customary rites by Harshagupta, he took that wife, and with her and Śilavatí, he mounted Śvetaraśmi, and then in a moment went through the air to the land of Ratnakúta, where the people were anxiously expecting him. And he rewarded Śilavatí again so munificently, that she attained all her wishes, having reaped the fruit of her vow of chastity. Then he mounted his new wife Rájadattá on that same air-travelling elephant Śvetarasmí, and conveyed her carefully, and placed her in the empty palace in the island in the midst of the sea, inaccessible to man, with a retinue of women only. And whatever article she required, he conveyed there through the air on that elephant, so great was his distrust. And being devotedly attached to her, he always spent the night there, but came to Ratnakúta in the day to transact his regal duties. Now one morning the king, in order to counteract an inauspicious dream, indulged with that Rájadattá in a drinking-bout for good luck. And though his wife, being intoxicated with that banquet, did not wish to let him go, he left her, and departed to Ratnakúta to transact his business, for the royal dignity is an ever-exacting wife. There he remained performing his duties with anxious mind, which seemed ever to ask him, why he left his wife there in a state of intoxication? And in the meanwhile Rájadattá, remaining alone in that inaccessible place, the female servants being occupied in culinary and other duties, saw a certain man come in at the door, like Fate determined to baffle all expedients for guarding her, and his arrival filled her with astonishment. And that intoxicated woman asked him when he approached her, " Who are you, and how have you come to this inaccessible place?" Then that man, who had endured many hardships, answered her—
Story of Yavanasena.:— Fair one, I am a merchant's son or Mathurá named Yavanasena. And when my father died, I was left helpless, and my relations took from me my property, so I went to a foreign country, and resorted to the miserable condition of being servant to another man. Then I with difficulty scraped together a little wealth by trading, and as I was going to another land, I was plundered by robbers who met me on the way. Then I wandered about as a beggar, and, with some other men like myself, I went to a mine of jewels called Kanakakshetra. There I engaged to pay the king his share, and after digging up the earth in a trench for a whole year, I did not find a single jewel. So, while the other men my fellows were rejoicing over the jewels they had found, smitten with grief I retired to the shore of the sea, and began to collect fuel.
