Page:Tales from the Indian Epics.djvu/73

Rh But her grief was more for the king than for herself. For she asked herself how the king, whose mind was darkened, would live without her. At last she mastered her sorrow, and guessing rightly that the king had fled to the distant forest sadly made her way there in the hope of finding him. Blind to all else, she thought only of her husband the king and, paying no attention to the thorns that cut her garment and tore her flesh, she forced her way through the bushes that grew in her path and the creepers that hung from the trees. At last unawares she came to a spot where a mighty serpent had its lair. It saw her coming and, as she passed near, its great head seized her arm and in an instant its huge coils had wound themselves round her body. But even then at the point of death her thoughts were for her husband and she cried aloud for help, not that she might live herself, but that she might be freed and thus be able to seek him out and serve him as his faithful wife. Happily a hunter who lived in the forest heard her cries and coming near saw the unhappy queen in the coils of the snake. He drew his knife and with a single blow cut the monster's head from off its body. Then he freed the fainting queen and leading her to a spring close by bathed her wound and gave her water to drink. And when her strength returned he bade her tell her story. She did so, but as he listened, he fell in love with her and sought to drag her captive to his hut. Then the proud blood of Aryan kings boiled in the queen's veins and from heaven she called down on the hunter a fearful curse. "If it be true," she cried, "that I have never given a thought to any man save only my husband, King Nala, may the gods strike this wretch dead at my feet." The Immortals heard her prayer and