Page:Tales from the Indian Epics.djvu/76

70 more be joined to your noble husband Nala King of the Nishadas." Damayanti rose and was about to thank the sage from the bottom of her heart. When lo! before her eyes, the gardens smiling with blossoms and the orchards laden with fruit, the laughing stream and the huts shaded by leafy trees vanished. And she stood once more alone in the heart of the forest. The queen rubbed her eyes, for she could scarcely believe them. "Where are those kind old men?" she asked herself. "And the beautiful rivulet and the flowers and the fruit trees?" Then she began to despair, but of a sudden, when she recalled the words of the anchorite, her courage once more returned, and once more she journeyed to the North searching for her husband.

As she walked she saw in front of her a giant Asoka tree and she remembered that as a child her nurse had told her that Asoka trees could, if they would, relieve mortals of their grief. "O Asoka tree," she cried, "I am Damayanti Queen of the Nishadas. Have you by any chance seen my husband King Nala? He, who once went forth to battle clad from head to foot in mail, wears nothing now but a single rag to cover his loins. If you have seen him tell me; if not, take away from me the pain of my sorrow. For as a child I learnt that you could ease men of their grief." But although she waited long for an answer, the great tree gave none. Then to honour the Asoka tree she walked three times round its mighty trunk and with eye-lashes wet with tears she sadly resumed her quest.

At first the gloom of the forest deepened, but afterwards the trees grew farther apart and at last she came to the banks of a wide river on whose waters swam wild duck and geese and swans from beyond