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120 at ease, however. She could not forget that she was alone. And above all, she little liked the looks that the mendicant cast at her from time to time. Trying to conceal her agitation, she looked out in the direction whence she might expect to see Rama return from his hunting, together with Lakshmana. But on all sides she beheld only the yellow forest-lands. Neither Rama nor Lakshmana was in sight.

Soon she discovered that the Brahmin who stood before her was not what he seemed. The rags and matted locks of a holy man were only a disguise adopted by Ravana, the ten-headed Demon-King, who had come, in the hope of carrying her away. Horrified at the dilemma in which she had so rashly placed herself, the courage of Sita, and her confidence in her husband, never wavered for an instant. She warned the Demon-King that he might more safely offer violence to the wife of Indra himself, the Wielder of the Thunderbolt, than to her, the wife of Rama. For an insult done to her, none, she said, should escape death, not though he drank the nectar of immortality.

At these words, Ravana suddenly assumed his proper form, vast, and having ten heads and twenty arms. Having done this, he seized Sita by force, and rose, carrying her, into the sky.

Weeping as she went, Sita cried aloud, charging