Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/254

 named Karnotpala in the country of Kalinga; he has a favourite courtier, a great dentist named Sangrámavardhana, and he has a daughter named Padmávatí, the pearl of the three worlds, whom he values more than his life. All this I knew from the talk of the people, and so I understood her signs, which were meant to tell her country and the other particulars about her.*

When that prince had been told all this by the minister's son, he was pleased with that intelligent man, and rejoiced, as he had now got an opportunity of attaining his object, and, after he had deliberated with him, he set out with him from his palace on the pretence of hunting, but really in search of his beloved, and went again in that direction. And on the way he managed to give his retinue the slip by the speed of his swift horse, and he went to the country of Kalinga accompanied by the minister's son only. There they reached the city of king Karnotpala, and searched for and found the palace of that dentist, and the prince and the minister's son entered the house of an old woman, who lived near there, to lodge. The minister's son gave their horses water and fodder, and placed them there in concealment, and then said to that old woman in the presence of the prince, " Do you know, mother, a dentist named Sangrámavardhana?" "When the old woman heard that, she said to him courteously, " I know him well; I was his nurse, and he has now made me attend upon his daughter as a duenna; but I never go there at present, as I have been deprived of my clothes, for my wicked son, who is a gambler, takes away my clothes as soon as he sees them." When the minister's son heard this, he was delighted, and he gratified the old woman with the gift of his upper garment and other presents, and went on to say to her, " You are a mother to us, 80 do what we request you to do in secret; go to that Padmávatí, the daughter of the dentist, and say to her, ' The prince, whom you saw at the lake, has come here, and out of love he has sent me to tell you.' " When the old woman heard this, she consented, being won over by the presents, and went to Padmávatí, and came back in a moment. And when the prince and the minister's son questioned her, she said to them, " I went and told her secretly that you had come. When she heard that, she scolded me, and struck me on both cheeks with her two hands smeared with camphor. So I have come back weeping, distressed at the insult. See here, my children, these marks of her fingers on my face."

When she said this, the prince was despondent, as he despaired of attaining his object, but the sagacious minister's son said to him in private,