I30 CRADLE TALES OF HINDUISM
were more bearable than the close walls of the palace, with its luxuries, had been. She was too deeply wrapped in sorrow to notice the faces or the treatment of her women guards. She had not even tasted food while in captivity. For on the first night of her imprisonment the God Indra, casting the people of Lanka into an en- chanted sleep, had appeared before her, bringing in his hands the food and drink of Heaven, which take away from mortals all hunger and thirst. And when the Queen was afraid to touch his gifts, lest he should prove in truth to be some other, wearing the guise of the King of Heaven, he shone forth before her for a moment with his divine attributes, . and then she ate and drank fearlessly from his hands of the food of the Immortals. Thus had she lived in her garden-prison during the weary weeks and months of her separation from Rama, and here, as the dawn approached, did Hanuman find her, feeling sure that his quest was ended.
Seated beneath a tree beside the river was a woman weeping. Pale and worn she was, and clad in threadbare silken garments of worship. But the bent head had about it something queenly, and the veil was worn with a grace unknown to the demon-women of Lanka. The monkey could see, moreover, that this woman before him was fair of tint, and very beautiful. Her air, with ail
