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pay him homage, and is the lord of this vast wilderness. Whatever may
happen, we must nut say anything here, for it is better for a man of honour to die, than to make known who he is under such circumstances."
While the prince was saying this to his ministers, king Vindhyaketu said to his servants, " Come now, shew me this heroic human victim, who killed so many of my warriors when he was being captured. As soon as his servants heard this, they brought Sundarasena, smeared with clotted blood, and defiled with wounds, into the presence of that king. When the king of the Bhillas saw him, he half recognised him, and being terrified, said to him, " Tell me, who are you, and whence do you come?" Sundarasena answered the king of the Bhillas, " What does it matter who I am, or whence I come? Do what you are about to do."
Then Vindhyaketu recognised him completely by his voice, and exclaiming excitedly, " Alas ! Alas !" fell on the ground. Then he embraced the prince, and said, " Alas, great king Mahásena, see what a fitting return I, villain that I am, have now made for your numerous benefits, in that I have here reduced to such a state your son, whom you value as your life, prince Sundarasena, who has come here from somewhere or other !" This and many other such laments he uttered in such a way that all there began to shed tears. But the delighted companions of Sundarasena comforted the Bhilla king, saying to him, " Is not this much that you recognised the prince before any misfortune had happened ? What could you have done after the event had taken place ? So why do you despond in the midst of this joy?"
Then the king fell at the feet of Sundarasena, and lovingly honoured him, and Sundarasena got him to set all the human victims free. And after he had shown him all due respect, he took him to his village and his friends with him, and proceeded to bandage his wounds and administer medicines to him; and he said to him, " Tell me, prince, what brought you to this place, for I have a great desire to know." Then Sundarasena related to him all his adventures. And that prince of the śavaras, being astonished, said to him, " What a wonderful chain of events ! That you should have set out to marry Mandaravatí, and that you should then have been wrecked*[1] in the sea, and that this should have led to your reaching the hermitage of Matanga, and to your meeting your beloved there, and that this merchant, in whom you confided, should have carried her off from you, and that you should have entered the wilderness, and have been imprisoned for sacrifice, and recognised by me and delivered from that death— how strangely does all this hang together! Therefore honour by all means to mysteriously working Destiny ! And you must not feel anxious about your beloved, for, as Destiny has done all this, she will also do you that other service soon."
- ↑ * I read with the Sanskrit College MS. pátah for práptih.
