Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/441

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423


you way-worn travellers have arrived here as my guests; so now come to my house, which is at no great distance, to rest."

When he had said this, he made my wearied darling get up on his horse, and himseif walked, and so he led us to his dwelling. There he provided us with food and other requisites, as if he had been a relation.* [1] Even in bad districts some few noble-hearted men spring up here and there. Then he gave me attendants, who enabled me to get out of that wood, and 1 reached a royal grant to Bráhmans, where I married that lady. Then I wandered about from country to country, and meeting with a caravan, I have to-day come here with her to bathe in the water of the Ganges. And here I have found this man whom I selected for myself as a friend; and I have seen your Highness; this, prince, is my story.

When he had said this, he ceased, and the prince of Vatsa loudly praised that Bráhman, who had obtained the prize he desired, the fitting reward of his genuine goodness; and in the meanwhile the prince's ministers, Gomukha and the others, who had long been roaming about looking for him, came up and found him. And they fell at the feet of Naraváhanadatta, and tears of joy poured down their faces; while he welcomed them all with due and fitting respect. Then the prince, accompanied by Lalitalochaná, returned with those ministers to his city, taking with him those two young Bráhmans, whom he valued on account of the tact and skill they had displayed in attaining worthy objects.


  1. * I read bándhavavat so. The late Professor Horace Hayman Wilson observes of this story. " The incidents are curious and diverting, but they are chiefly remarkable from being the same as the contrivances by which Mádhava and Makaranda obtain their miatresses in the drama entitled Málatí and Mádhava or the Stolen Marriage."