Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/325

 enter ray harem?" When the king said this, the wise Yaugandharáyana answered him, " I will prove it to you by ocular testimony this very night, my sovereign. For the divine Siddhas and other beings of the kind are in love with her. What can a man do against them? And who here can interfere with the movements of gods? So come and see it with your own eyes." When the minister said this, the king determined to go there with him at night.

Then Yaugandharáyana came to the queen, and said— " To-day, O queen, I have carried out what I promised, that the king should marry no other wife except queen Padmávatí, and thereupon he told her the whole story of Kalingasená. And the queen Vásavadattá congratulated him, bowing low and saying— " This is the fruit which I have reaped from following your instructions."

Then, at night, when folk were asleep, the king of Vatsa went with Yaugandharáyana to the palace of Kalingasená. And entering unperceived, he beheld Madanavega in his proper form, sleeping by the side of the sleeping Kalingasená. And when the king was minded to slay that audacious one, the Vidyádhara prince was roused by his own magic knowledge, and when awake, he went out, and immediately flew up into the heaven. And then Kalingasená awoke immediately. And seeing the bed empty, she said, " How is this, that the king of Vatsa wakes up before me, and departs, leaving me asleep?" When Yaugandharáyana heard that, he said to the king of Vatsa— " Listen, she has been beguiled by that Vidyádhara wearing your form. He was found out by me by means of my magic power, and now I have exhibited him before your eyes, but you cannot kill him on account of his heavenly might." After saying this, he and the king approached her, and Kalingasená, for her part, seeing them, stood in a respectful attitude. But when she began to say to the king— " Where, O king, did you go only a moment ago, so as to return with your minister?"— Yaugandharáyana said to her— " Kalingasená, you have been married by some being, who beguiled you by assuming the shape of the king of Vatsa, and not by this lord of mine."

When Kalingasená heard this, she was bewildered, and as if pierced through the heart by an arrow, she said to the king of Vatsa with tear-streaming eyes,— " Have you forgotten me, O king, after marrying me by the Gándharva rite, as Śakuntalá long ago was forgotten by Dushyanta?"* When the king was thus addressed by her, he said with downeast face, " In truth you were not married by me, for I never came here till this moment."