THE CONQUEST OF LANKA 137
to his wife he was exceedingly gentle. " My beloved," he said, ** it is the enemy's duty to avenge himself upon us, if he can. Would you rather that your husband and sons died, if die they must, whining for mercy, or bravely, as good knights should, contending for their prize?"
Then Mandodari felt that her husband had spoken his secret thought, that he and her boys would die, and she be left childless and a widow. But she uttered no cry, nor shed even a tear, for she knew that her work now must lie in strengthening, not in making them afraid.
Some hours later Rama and Lakshmana, in their camp, saw an officer with soldiers drawing near to them under a flag of truce. He dismounted on reaching them, and said, " Gentlemen, we, the people of Lanka, are entirely in the wrong in this matter. I have come to offer you my alliance." It was Vibhishana, the brother of Ravana, with his men-at-arms.
The princes received him as an honoured guest, and proclamation was made, that on the taking of Lanka he should be appointed governor.
Almost immediately after this the storming of the city began, and it is told in an old book that during the course of the siege Lakshmana saw an archer on the walls take aim at Vibhishana to shoot him. The brother of Rama remembered only, in that moment, that the deserter was their
