Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/212

Rh (hastatalagata), a phrase which unhappily lends itself to the suspicious interpretation that he meditates alliance with that king. Malayaketu's conversation with Rākṣasa, which ensues, leaves him half-hearted for an advance, for he cannot rid himself of his suspicions of the minister. The Act ends with Jīvasiddhi's admission to see Rākṣasa, who asks him in vain for intelligible advice as to the time for an advance, receiving in lieu much astrological lore and what is really a presage of disaster. This is achieved in Act V. First Jīvasiddhi approaches Bhāgurāyaṇa, who is entrusted with the grant of permits to leave the camp, and admits – with feigned reluctance – in order to get a permit, that he fears Rākṣasa, who used him formerly when he was arranging for the poisoning of Parvateça, but now seeks to slay him. The king, who overhears this, is wild with rage; he had deemed his father slain by Cāṇakya, and Bhāgurāyaṇa has great difficulty in persuading him that Rākṣasa's action might be deemed justifiable, and that at any rate vengeance must wait. Siddharthaka, however, now appears a prisoner, caught trying to escape without a passport; beaten, he finally gives evidence against Rākṣasa in the shape of the letter written in Act I by Çakaṭadāsa, which he asserts he was to bear from Rākṣasa to Candragupta, a jewel sealed, like the letter, with Rākṣasa's seal – one given by Malayaketu to Rākṣasa and by him to Siddhārthaka for rescuing Çakaṭadāsa, and a verbal message, stating the terms demanded by the allied kings for their treachery, and Rākṣasa's own demand, the removal of Cāṇakya. The king confronts Rākṣasa with the proofs, and the minister has made his case worse from the start, for, asked the order of march proposed, he assigns to the allied kings the proud duty of guarding the king's person, which Malayaketu interprets as a device to facilitate their treachery. Rākṣasa is bewildered; he can deny the message, but the seal and the writing are genuine; can Çakaṭadāsa have turned traitor through fear? The argument against him is clinched by the king's seeing that he wears a fine jewel, one of those purchased at the close of Act II; it was the king's father's, and must, he insists, be the price of the minister's treachery. Incensed, the foolish king gives orders to bury alive those allied kings who craved territory as their reward, and to trample under elephants those who sought them as their share.