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THE CAPTURE OF SITA
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Ravana, certain ornaments, and also her yellow veil.

And Rama, wending his Wiiy homeward through the distant forest, after the slaying of the deer, noticed that the jackals were howling behind him, and had not a doubt that some ill had befallen him. A moment later he met Lakshmana, and knew Sita to be alone.

But when the two heroes, shaken with anxiety, reached their cottage, and found that she had vanished, the anguish of Rama was impossible to describe. At first, hoping against hope, he refused to believe that she was lost. But when at last there was no conceivable hiding-place that had not been searched and found empty, when the silent forest had failed to answer his despairing questions, when every call had been echoed back from the desolate wilderness, then Rama came to the conclusion that Sita had been devoured by demons, and with the bitterest self- reproaches, he fell into a stupor of grief.