Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/283



Then king Trivikramasena went back to the aśoka-tree, and again found the Vetála there, and took him on his shoulder. As he was going along with him, the Vetála said to him on the way, " King, listen to me, I will tell you a story to make you forget your fatigue."

Story of the king who married his dependent to the Nereid.:— There is a city on the shore of the eastern sea, named Támraliptí; in that city there was a king of the name of Chandasinha; he turned away his face from the wives of others, but not from battle-fields; he carried off the fortune of his foes, but not the wealth of his neighbours. Once on a time a popular Rájpút of the Dekkan, named Sattvaśila, came to the palace-gate of that king. And he announced himself, and then, on account of his poverty, he and some other Rájpúts tore a ragged garment in the presence of that king. Thus he became a dependent,* and remained there for many years perpetually serving the king, but he never received any reward from him. And he said to himself, " If I have been born in a royal race, why am I so poor? And considering my poverty is so great, why did the Creator make my ambition so vast? For though I serve the king so diligently, and my followers are sorely afflicted, and I have long been pining with hunger, he has never, up to the present time, deigned to notice me."

While such were the reflections of the dependent, the king one day went out to hunt. And he went, surrounded with horses and footmen, to the forest of wild beasts, while his dependent ran in front of him bearing a stick. And after he had hunted for some time, he followed up closely a boar that had escaped, and soon he reached another distant wood. And in that vast jungle, where the path was obscured with leaves and grass, the king lost the boar, and he became exhausted, and was unable to find his way. And the dependent was the only one that kept up with him, running on foot, regardless of his own life, tortured with hunger and thirst, though the king was mounted upon a horse swift as the wind. And the king, when he saw that the dependent had followed him, in spite of his being in such a condition, said to him in a kind voice, " Do you know the way by which we came?" When the dependent heard that, he put his hands together in an attitude of supplication, and said, " I do know it, but let