Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/186

Rh canvas painted with glowing colours, by a skilful artist. Here the cassia, the laurel, the orange tree, the wild lemon, the screwpine, the sweet-scented jassamine, the ever-green asoka, and the silk-cotton trees with their brilliant scarlet flowers, seemed to vie with each other in the profusion of their blossoms, and presented such a picturesque scenery that Mani-mekalai and her companion spent a long while wandering through the delightful garden.

While Manimekalai and Sutamati were in the park, a huge elephant had broken out of the royal stables, and rushed through the palace road, the chariot road and the market road, scaring the populace who fled for their lives in every direction. Elephant-keepers and drummers ran after the animal, and with their shouts and beat of drum warned the people to keep out of its way. Udayakumaran, the son of the Chola king Killi-valavan, having heard of the accident, mounted a fleet steed and overtaking the elephant, stopped its mad career, and delivered it into the hands of its keepers. He then got into a chariot and, followed by an escort of soldiers, was returning to his palace, through the actresses’ street, looking as handsome as a god, when his eyes fell on a merchant of noble rank seated motionless in the mansion of an actress, near a window facing thc street apparently in great distress of mind. The prince stopped his chariot opposite the gilded doorway of the house, and enquired “What ails you? Why are you and the actress so dejected?" The merchant accompanied by the actress approached the prince, and making a profound obeisance, wished him a long life, and said “I happened to see just now Mâthavi’s charming daughter Manimekalai going to the flower-garden Uva-vanam. Her beauty seems to fade in the close air of the convent like that of a flower shut up in a casket. Her appearance and the recollection of her father's sad death affected me so much that I sat still unable to play on the lute.”

"I shall take the lovely girl in my chariot and bring her here,” said the prince joyously, and drove towards the park. Stopping his chariot and his attendants at the park gate, he jumped down and entered the park alone, scanning with his eager eyes