Page:Stories of India's Gods & Heroes.djvu/42

34 with dust and worn with fatigue? Without thee we are as empty shadows; thou art our father, our joy, our city, our heaven; leave us not, O best of kings!"

Then King Harischandra, much moved, wavered in his going, out of pity more for the forlorn mood of his subjects than for his own sad plight. Viswamitra saw him linger, and brake forth on him angrily, saying, "Shame on thy faithless dealing, thou, who, having promised to give me thy kingdom, now desirest to withhold the gift!"

The king, trembling, murmured, "I am going." But the sage, not content with roughness of speech, raised his staff and cruelly belaboured the poor young queen as Harischandra led her away. The king's heart swelled with grief; but, "I am going," was all that he said.

Thus Harischandra, with his wife Saivya and the boy, left his country and went on foot to Benares. But Viswamitra was there before them, and sternly demanded the fee; for the month, he said, was gone.

"Nay, great Rishi," said Harischandra, "there remaineth half a day; await my payment thus far, I pray thee."

Then the king cast about wildly for some means to find the money; but there appeared to him no source of gain, save to sell his hapless wife and the boy into slavery. This she herself was the first to propose rather than allow her husband to lose his good name for truthfulness and incur the Brahman's curse. But so distraught was the king at her words, that he swooned away with grief; and when his senses