Page:Stories of India's Gods & Heroes.djvu/153

Rh noble steed and made haste to depart with her. But the Danava folk saw it, and cried out that their pearl of maidens was being carried off together with the goodly weapons which the prince had won by his conquest of the fiend. So they called on him to stop, and assailed him amain with showers of arrows. But Kuvalayaswa, foiling their attack with a laugh, as though all were mere sport, seized a mystical weapon and hurled it at the Danavas; and thereby they, with the prince's special foe among them, were on the instant reduced to a heap of bones charred by furious heat.

Having thus vanquished his foes, Kuvalayaswa came with that pearl of women to the city of his father; to whom he forthwith related the manner of his finding her, together with the tale of his pursuit of the fiend and the conquest of the Danava warriors.

Hearing these things, Satrujit was filled with joy, and embracing his son affectionately, said, "Happy am I in thee, my son, who hast thus delivered the holy sages from their fears! The fame that I received from my ancestors I myself have increased; and now thou, in turn, hast added yet more thereto. He who neither increases nor lessens the fame transmitted to him is the ordinary man; he who launches forth into some new venture, whereby that fame is enlarged, is truly great. Thus I might, in my day, have delivered the Brahmans from the presence of the fiend; but thou, by thy descent to Patala, hast achieved a far more notable exploit; and henceforth thou art great among men, nor needest any whit to lean upon thy father's fame.