Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/180

 When she had consoled her with these words, she went and told an intimate friend of hers, named Aśokakarí, her secret object. And with her she waited during three days on the desponding Hansávalí, who agreed with them on the measures to be taken.

And when the wedding-day came, the bridegroom Kamalákara arrived at night, with a train of elephants, horses, and footmen. While all the people of the palace were occupied with festal rejoicing, Kanakamanjarí, keeping by an artifice the other maids out of the way, quickly took Hansávalí into her chamber, ostensibly for the purpose of decking her, and put the princess's dress on herself, and clothed her in the dress of Aśokakarí, and put her own dress on her accomplice Aśokakarí, and when night came, said to Hansávalí, " If you go out only the distance of a cos from the western gate of this city, you will find an old Śálmali-tree. Go and hide inside it, and await my arrival. And after the business is accomplished, I will certainly come there to you." When Hansávalí heard these words of her treacherous friend, she agreed, and went out from the female apartments at night clad in her garments, and she passed out unperceived by the western gate of the city, which was crowded with the bridegroom's attendants, and reached the foot of that Śálmali-tree. But when she saw that the hollow of it was black with thick darkness, she was afraid to go into it, so she climbed up a banyan-tree near it. There she remained hidden by the leaves, watching for the arrival of her treacherous friend, for she did not see through her villainy, being herself of a guileless nature.*

In the palace meanwhile, the auspicious moment having arrived, the king brought Kanakamanjarí, who was dressed as Hansávalí, and placed her on the sacrificial platform, and Kamalákara married that fair-hued maid, and on account of its being night nobody detected her. And the moment the marriage was over, the prince set out for his own camp at full speed by that same western gate of the city, in order to gain the benefit of propitious constellations, and he took with him the supposed Hansávali, together with Aśokakarí, who was personating Kanakamanjarí. And as he went along, he came near that Śálmali-tree, in the ban}/an-tree near which was concealed Hansávalí, who had been so cruelly deceived. And when he arrived there, the supposed Hansávalí, who was on the back of the elephant, which the king had mounted, embraced him, as if she were terrified. And he asked her eagerly the reason of that terror, whereupon she