occur? If it
pleases thee, O king, I will speak, and listen to my words, and, O son of
Prishata's race, having listened to me, follow thy own inclination! Let
the wedding of this child with a wife be caused to be performed
carefully. The words of that god will be true. This is my certain
belief!' Then that royal couple, having settled their resolution of that
affair, chose the daughter of the king of the Dasarnakas as their son's
wife. After this, the royal Drupada, that lion among kings, having
enquired about the purity of descent, of all the rulers of the earth,
selected the daughter of the king of Dasarnakas for wife to Sikhandin.
He, who was called the king of the Dasarnakas was named Hiranyavarman;
and he gave away his daughter to Sikhandin. And Hiranyavarman, the king
of the Dasarnakas, was a powerful monarch, incapable of being easily
vanquished. Incapable of being resisted, that high-souled monarch
possessed a large army. And sometimes after the wedding, the daughter of
Hiranyavarman, O best of monarchs, attained her youth while the daughter
of Drupada also had attained hers. And Sikhandin, after marriage, came
back to Kampilya. And the former soon came to know that the latter was a
woman like herself. And the daughter of Hiranyavarman, having ascertained
that Sikhandin was really a woman, bashfully represented unto her nurses
and companions everything about the so-called son of the king of the
Panchalas. Then, O tiger among kings, those nurses of the Dasarnakas
country were filled with great grief and sent emissaries unto their king.
And those emissaries represented unto the king of the Dasarnakas
everything about the imposture that had taken place. And, thereupon, the
king of the Dasarnakas was filled with wrath. Indeed, O bull of the
Bharata race, Hiranyavarman, hearing the news after the expiry of a few
days was much afflicted with wrath. The ruler of the Dasarnakas then,
filled with fierce wrath, sent a messenger to Drupada's abode. And the
messenger of king Hiranyavarman, having alone approached Drupada, took
him aside and said unto him in private, 'The king of the Dasarnakas, O
monarch, deceived by thee and enraged, O sinless one, at the insult thou
hast offered him, hath said these words unto thee,--Thou hast humiliated
me! Without doubt it was not wisely done by thee! Thou hadst, from folly,
solicited my daughter for thy daughter! O wicked one, reap now the
consequence of that act of deception. I will now