Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/432

370 crying 'Ráma, Ráma, O my Ráma!' When she saw me, she dropped her scarf." Ráma at once asked for it; he gave it him; he pressed the scarf to his bosom in the deepest distress. Said Sugríva: "Hearken, Raghubír; be not so distressed; take courage. I will do all in my power to serve you and recover Jánaki."

The All-merciful and Almighty rejoiced to hear his friend's speech. "Tell me, Sugríva, the reason why you are living in this forest."

"My lord, Báli and I are two brothers; our mutual love was past all telling. The son of Maya, Máyávi by name, came to our town. In the middle of the night he shouted at the city-gate. Báli endures no enemy to set him at defiance and sallied forth. Seeing this he fled. Now I too accompanied my brother, and when he had gone into one of the caves of the mountain, Báli said to me: Wait for me a fortnight, and if I do not come then, conclude that I have been killed. I stayed there a whole month, Kharári; a tremendous stream of blood then flowed out; I made sure that Báli had been defeated and that the enemy would come and kill me too. I therefore closed the mouth of the cave with a rock and fled away. When the ministers of state saw the city without a master, they forced the government upon me, whether I would or no. When Báli, who had slain the foe, came home and saw me, he was greatly set against me and gave me a severe beating, as he would an enemy, and took from me everything that I had, together with my wife. For fear of him, O merciful Raghubír, I wander forlorn all over the world. The curse prevents him from coming here, and yet I am ill at ease in mind." When the friend of the suppliant heard of his servant's troubles, his two mighty arms were uplifted with a convulsive motion.

"Hearken, Sugríva; I will slay Báli with a single arrow; though he take refuge with Brahma even, or Rudra, he shall not escape with his life.

They, who are not distressed at the sight of a friend's distress, are guilty of grievous sin. They, who do not think it the most natural thing possible to regard as a mere grain of sand their own mountain-like troubles, while a friend's trouble, though really no bigger than a grain of sand, seems to them as weighty