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weapons in its hand. He went up to it, and in compassion put it on his shoulder, and carried it a long distance, and when he wished to put it down, the snake said to him— " Carry me ten steps further, counting them, as you go. Then Nala advanced, counting the steps, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven— listen, snake— eight, nine, ten, and when he said ten daśa),*[1] the snake took him at his word, and hit him in the front of the forehead, as he lay on his shoulder. That made the king small in the arms, deformed and black. Then the king took down the snake from his shoulder, and said to him— " Who art thou, and what kind of a return for my kindness is this which thou hast made ?" When the snake heard this speech of Nala's, he answered him,— " King, know that I am a king of the snakes named Kárkotaka, and I gave you the bite for your good; that you will come to learn; when great ones wish to live concealed, a deformed appearance of body furthers their plans. Receive also from me this pair of garments, named the ' fire-bleached,' you need only put them on and you will recover your true form." When Kárkotaka had said this, and had departed after giving those garments, Nala left that wood, and in course of time reached the city of Kośalá.
And going by the name of Hrasvabáhu, he took service as a cook in the family of king Rituparna, the sovereign of Kośala. And he acquired renown by making dishes of exquisite flavour, and by his skill in chariot-driving. And while Nala was living there, under the name of Hrasvabáhu, it happened that once upon a time one of the spies of the king of Vidarbha came there. And the spy heard men there saying,— " In this place there is a new cook, of the name of Hrasvabáhu, equal to Nala in his own special art and also in the art of driving. The spy suspected that the cook was Nala himself, and hearing that he was in the judgment-hall of the king, he went there and repeated the following Áryá verse, taught him by his master, " Moon, where have you hid yourself so cruelly, deserting your young bride asleep in the forest, dear as a cluster of white lotuses, having taken a piece of her robe?" The people present in the judgment-hall, when they heard that, thought that his words were those of a madman, but Nala, who stood there disguised as a cook, answered him, " What cruelty was there in the moon's becoming invisible to the lotus-cluster, when it reached and entered another region, after one part of the heaven †[2] had become exhausted?"
When the spy heard this, he surmised that the supposed cook was really Nala transformed by misfortune, and he departed thence, and when he reached Vidarbha, he told king Bhíma and his queen and Damayantí all that he had heard and seen.
