Page:Stories of India's Gods & Heroes.djvu/46

38 king awoke, inquiring, in his terror, whether all this time and dire experience had really passed over him. Then, ejaculating a prayer to the gods for deliverance, the king once more took up his wretched work.

Then there came to that burning-ground none other than his queen herself, with the body of the boy, who had perished by snake-bite. Neither of them recognised the other, for the king had become, as we have seen, wholly in appearance as one of the vile attendants of the burning-ground; while the queen was worn with the sorrow of long separation from her husband, and sadly marred by want and wandering. She, then, lamenting sorely, drew near to the funeral pyre; and Harischandra, noticing the kingly marks of the boy, thought sadly of the churlish fate by which one so like his own child had been thus early enthralled by dreadful death.

Then the queen, lamenting her fate in general, railed on the gods, saying, "Reft of kingdom and friends, wife and child sold into slavery, what has King Harischandra not suffered by the gods' decree?"

On hearing these words, the king recognised his wife, and crying aloud, "This is indeed my wife and child!" fell swooning to the earth. She, too, recognising her husband, all changed as he was, herself was overpowered with faintness. Anon they both recovered, and bewailed together the strange and hard lot that lay on them. The queen, scarce able to comprehend—even beholding with her eyes—her husband's miserable transformation and shameful toil, asked of him, saying, "Tell me, O king, do we wake or sleep? Art thou indeed as thou seemest?