Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/488

480 ty. Was it for bored kings and mischief-making mothers-in-law, he asks, speaking with the ante-natal memories of Vishnu, that he came among the sons of men? Not at all! he has a mission, and he bides his time. For the present he will take his wife Seeta, whose will is his, and go out into the wilderness, there to build him a hut of bamboos and banian-boughs and palmyra-leaves, and be— Seeta and he—two jolly yogees, that is, religious gypsies,—living on grass-roots, wild rice, and white ants, and being dirty and devout to their heart’s content.

So they went; and for a little while they enjoyed, undisturbed, their yogeeish ideas of a good time. But by-andby tidings came to Rawunna—the giant with ten heads and twice ten arms, that was King of Lanka (Ceylon)—of the plots of Mrs. Mithili, the disgust of old Doosurath, the distraction of the kingdom of Ayodhya, and the whimsical adventure of Rama and Seeta.

And immediately Rawunna, the giant, is seized in all his heads and arms with a great longing in know what manner of man this Rama may be, that he should prefer the yogee’s breech-cloth to the royal purple, a hut of leaves, with only his Seeta, to a harem of a hundred wives, white ants and paddy to the white camel’s flesh and golden partridges of Ayodhya’s imperial repasts. Especially is he curious as to the charms of Seeta, as to the mighty magic wherewithal she renders monogamy acceptable to an Ayodhyan prince.

By Indra! he will see for himself! So, pleading exhaustion from the cares of state, and ten headaches of trouble and dyspepsia, he announces his intention to make an excursion a few hundred coss into the country for the benefit of his health; and taking twenty carpet-bags in his hands, he sets out, in his monstrous way, for Ayodhya, leaving his kingdom in the care of a blue dwarf with an eye in the back of his neck.

With seven-coss strides he comes to Ayodhya, and straightway finds the banian hut in the forest, where Rama dwells with Seeta in the devout dirtiness of their jolly yogeery.

The god has gone abroad in search of a dinner, and is over the hills to the sandy nullahs, where the white ants are fattest; while that greasy Joan, Seeta, "doth keel the pot" at home.

Then Rawunna, the giant, assuming the shape of a pilgrim yogee rolling to the Caves of Ellora,—with Gayntree, the mystical text, on his lips, and the shadow of Siva’s beard in his soul,—rolls to Rama’s door, and cries, "Alms, alms, in the name of the Destroyer!"

And Seeta comes forth, with water in a palm-leaf and grass-roots in the fold of her saree; and when she beholds the false yogee her heart blooms with pity, so that her smile is as the alighting of butterflies, and her voice as the rustling of roses.

But, behold you, as she bends over the prostrate yogee, and, saying. "Drink from the cup of Vishnu!" offers the crisp leaf to his dusty lips, a great spasm of desire impels the impostor; and, flinging off the yogee, be leaps erect, Rawunna, the Abhorred!

With ten mouths he kisses her; with twenty arms he clasps her; and away, away to Lunka! while yet poor Seeta gasps with fear.

When Rama returned and found no Seeta, his soul was seized with a mighty horror; and a blankness, like unto the mystery of Brahm, fell upon his heart. He shed not a tear, but the sky wept floods; he uttered not a groan, but Earth shook from her centre, and the mountains fell on their faces. But Rama, stupefied, stood stock still where he was stricken, and stared, till his eyelids stiffened, at the desolate hut, at the desolate hearth.

Then all the angels in heaven, who had witnessed the crime of Rawunna, and his flight, passed into the forms of monkeys; and a million of them made a monkey chain, that the rest of the celestial host might descend into the banian-groves of Ayodhya. The tails glide swiftly through each glowing hand, and quick as lightning on the trees they stand.