Page:Tales from the Indian Epics.djvu/106

100 he promised that the prince and I should each live four hundred years."

After Savitri had ended her tale, they all rose and went to their huts and slept until the sun rose. A few hours after sunrise, King Dyumatsena saw a great multitude approaching his hermitage. He came out of his hut and asked their business. "O King," they said, "we are men from the kingdom of the Salyas. We have come to tell you that your enemy has been killed by his minister, and with him have perished also his sons and his kinsmen and his followers. Therefore, O King, come back to the land of the Salyas. For we have thrown off the yoke of the foreigner and we wish you, blind though you are, to rule over us."

"My people," said King Dyumatsena, "I will gladly return to your land and reign over you. But I am no longer blind. For the Immortals have given me back my sight," When the multitude heard this, they were delighted. And they bowed to the earth before him and bade him hasten back to their land and rule over them as their king. That very day King Dyumatsena and Queen Saivya, with Prince Satyavan and Princess Savitri were borne in palanquins from the forest to the chief city of the Salya people. There the Brahmans installed Dyumatsena as king and Prince Satyavan as his successor. And King Asvapati's queen, Malavi, bore him a hundred sons. And Savitri bore to Prince Satyavan a hundred sons, strong, brave and beautiful as their father. And Prince Satyavan and Savitri became in due course king and queen of the Salya people and ruled over them until they were four hundred years old. Then they passed gently away and their subjects sorrowed over them for many a twelvemonth afterwards.