603
And at night Rúpavatí seeing that her husband, as he lay on the bed,
was plunged in thought, and kept his head turned away, pretended to be
asleep. And in the dead of night Keśața, thinking that she was asleep,
went out to that Rákshasa to keep his promise. And that faithful wife
Rúpavatí also gently rose up unobserved, and followed her husband, full of curiosity. And when Keśața arrived where the Rákshasa was, the latter said to him, " Bravo ! you have kept your promise faithfully. Keśața; you are a man of noble character. You sanctify your city of Páțaliputra and your father Deśata by your virtue, so approach, that I may devour you." When Rúpavatí heard that, she came up quickly and said, " Eat me, for, if my husband is eaten, what will become of me? " The Rákshasa said, " You can live on alms." She replied, " Who, noble sir, will give alms to me who am a woman? " The Rákshasa said, " If any one refuses to give you alms, when asked to do so, his head shall split in a hundred pieces."*[1] Then she said, " This being so, give me my husband by way of alms." And, as the Rákshasa would not give him, his head at once split asunder, and he died. Then Rúpavatí returned to her bridal -chamber, with her husband, who was exceedingly astonished at her virtue, and at that moment the night came to an end.
And the next morning the bridegroom's friends took food and set out from that city, and reached the bank of the Narmadá with the newly married pair. Then the old Bráhman, who was their leader, put the wife Rúpavatí with her attendants on board one boat, and went on board a second himself, and cunningly made Keśața embark on a third, having previously made an agreement with the boatmen; and before he went on board took from him all the ornaments he had lent him. Then the Bráhman was ferried across with the wife and the bridegroom's party, but Keśața was kept out in the middle of the stream by the boatmen, and carried to a great distance. Then those boatmen pushed the boat and Keśața into a place where the current ran full and strong, and swam ashore themselves, having been bribed by the old Bráhman.
But Keśața was carried with the boat, by the river which was lashed into waves by the wind, into the sea, and at last a wave flung him up on the coast. There he recovered strength and spirits, as he was not doomed to die just yet, and he said to himself, " Well, that Bráhman has made me a fine recompense. But was not the fact that he married his son by means of a substitute, in itself sufficient proof that he was a fool and a scoundrel? "
While he remained there, buried in such thoughts, the night came on him, when the companies of air-flying witches begin to roam about. He remained sleepless through it, and in the fourth watch he heard a noise in the
- ↑ * Cp. Vol. II, p. 63
