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room by the light of a lamp that had been left there before, as if she were lighted by her own undiminished virtue. And she took out of it her clothes and her gold, and leaving it secretly at the close of the night, she went out of the city. She reflected— " It is not fitting that I should go to my father's house after acting thus; what should I say there, and how would people believe me? So I must manage to repair to my husband by means of my own ingenuity; for a husband is the only refuge of virtuous women in this world and the next." Reflecting thus, she bathed in the water of a tank, and put on the splendid dress of a prince. Then she went into the bazar and after exchanging some gold for money, she sojourned that day in the house of a certain merchant.
The next day she struck up a friendship with a merchant named Samudrasena who wished to go to Vallabhí. And wearing the splendid dress of a prince, she set out for Vallabhí with the merchant and his servants in order to catch up her husband who had set out beforehand. And she said to that merchant, " I am oppressed by my clansmen,*[1] so I will go with you to my friends in Vallabhí."
Having heard that, the merchant's son waited upon her on the journey, out of respect, thinking to himself that she was some distinguished prince or other; and that caravan preferred for its march the forest road, which was much frequented by travellers, who avoided the other routes because of the heavy duties they had to pay. In a few days they reached the entrance of the forest, and while the caravan was encamped in the evening, a female jackal, like a messenger of death, uttered a terrific howl. Thereupon the merchants, who understood what that meant, became apprehensive of an attack by bandits, and the guards on every side took their arms in hand; and the darkness began to advance like the vanguard of the bandits; then Kírtisená, in man's dress, beholding that, reflected, " Alas ! the deeds of those who have sinned in a former life seem to propagate themselves with a brood of evils ! Lo ! the calamity which my mother-in-law brought upon me has borne fruit here also ! First I was engulphed by the wrath of my mother-in-law as if by the mouth of death, then I entered the cellar like a second prison of the womb. By good fortune, I escaped thence, being, as it were, born a second time, and having come here, I have again run a risk of my life. If I am slain here by bandits, my mother-in-law, who hairs me, will surely say to my husband, ' She ran off somewhere being attached to another man.' But if some one tears off my clothes and recognises me
- ↑ * Gotraja, nearly equivalent to the Gentile of Roman law, and applied to kindred of the same general family connected by offerings of food and water; hence opposed to the Bandhu or cognate kindred. She represented that she was a prince whose clansmen wore trying to disinherit him.
