Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/589

 Then Pushkara said to him, " If you will not stake your wife, then leave this country of mine with her." When Nala heard this, he left that country with Damayantí, and the king's officers saw him as far as the frontier. Alas ! when Kali reduced Nala to such a state, say, what will be the lot of other mortals, who are like worms compared with him? Curse on this gambling, the livelihood of Kali and Dvápara, without law, without natural affection, such a cause of misfortunes even to royal sages. So Nala, having been deprived of his sovereignty by his brother, started to go to another land with Damayantí, and as he was journeying along, he reached the centre of a forest, exhausted with hunger. There, as he was resting with his wife, whose soft feet were pierced with darbha grass, on the bank of a river, he saw two swans arrive. And he threw his upper garment over them, to capture them for food, and those two swans lieu away with it. And Nala heard a voice from heaven,— " These are those two dice in the form of swans, they have descended and flown off with your garment also." Then the king sat down despondent, with only one garment on, and providently shewed to Damayantí the way to her father's house ; saying, " This is the way to Vidarbha, my beloved, to your father's house, this is the way to the country of the Angas, and this is the way to Kośala." When Damayantí heard this, she was terrified, thinking to herself— "Why does my husband tell me the way, as if he meant to abandon me?" Then the couple fed on roots and fruits, and when night came on, lay down both of them, wearied, in the wood, on a bed of kuśa grass. And Damayantí, worn out with the journey, gradually dropt off to sleep, but Nala, desiring to depart, kept awake, deluded by Kali. So he rose up with one garment, deserting that Damayantí, and departed thence, after cutting off half her upper garment and putting it on. But Damayantí woke up at the end of the night, and when she did not see in the forest her husband, who had deserted her and gone, she thought for some time, and then lamented as follows: " Alas, my husband, great of heart, merciful even to your enemy ! You that used to love me so' well, what has made you cruel to me? And how will you be able to go alone on foot through the forests, and who will attend on you to remove your weariness ? How will the dust defile on the journey your feet, that used to be stained with the pollen of the flowers in the garlands worn on the heads of kings ! How will your body, that could not endure to be anointed with the powder of yellow sandal-wood, endure the heat of the sun in the middle of the day? What do I care for my young son? What for my daughter? What for myself? May the gods, if I am chaste, procure good fortune for you alone !" Thus Damayantí lamented, in her loneliness. and then set out by the path, which her husband had shewn her before-hand. And with difficulty she crossed the woods, forests, rivers, and