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Rh had once nursed him back to life, in his camp, in time of war, and how he had then promised her two boons, which it would lie with her to name. Today, at last, she would claim these boons. She desired that her husband should banish Rama to the forests, sentencing him to live for fourteen years the life of a hermit. And she desired further that her own son Bharata should be installed and crowned in his stead as heir-apparent.

At first the King indignantly refused Kekai's absurd requests. Then, comparing her habitual sweetness and nobility with her present extraordinary conduct, he wondered if she had suddenly become insane. Finally, he pleaded and remonstrated, striving to make her withdraw her request. The affection he had hitherto felt for this youngest and most charming of his three queens began now to seem to him like a disloyalty to Rama's mother. He wondered if he had caused her pain and loneliness. He saw his whole life as an error, and he prayed for mercy.

But Kekai, in her present strange and cruel mood, was inflexible. She spoke only to remind the King of the heinousness of a broken promise. Again and again she insisted that the word had been given, and it must be kept. And in the morning it was she who sent messengers to