utting out along the wall, like the huge black heads of elephants
of war advancing in a line. And behind him lay the city, covered over
with a pall of black that was edged and touched with silver points and
fringes; and before him the desert stretched away, smeared as it were
with ashes, under the light of the moon. And brave as he was, his heart
beat, just a very little, in expectation of what was coming. And he said
to himself: My father-in-law's dismissal was not very reassuring. But
where then is the danger, and from what quarter is it coming, and what
form will it take? For here is nothing whatever to fight with, except
the shadows cast by the moon. Or is this all merely a trick of the King
to test me, before which all my predecessors have ignominiously failed?
Yet no. For were it so, my wife would indeed be an actress[1] capable of
reducing Tumburu to the state of ashes.

[1] An actress and a dancer are in Sanskrit denoted by the
same word.

So as he stood, waiting, and smiling at his own thoughts, it happened
that that daughter of Kirttisena, whose jealousy of the King's daughter
had caused all the trouble in the King's city, came according to her
custom flying towards the city wall. For every night she came to see
whether there was a new suitor. And whenever she discovered one, she had
recourse to a Rakshasa that was bound to her by obligations, who came as
soon as thought of, and swallowed that unhappy suitor whole[2]. And now
for some time, no new suitor had appeared. So as she came flying in the
likeness of a bat, she looked towards the city wall, expecting to find
it empty. And she saw, instead, Aja, standing, leaning on his sword, and
smiling, on the very edge of the wall. And at the very first glance at
him, she was struck with stupor, and she fell that very moment so
violently in love with him[3] that she could hardly flap her wings, by
reason of the fierce agitation of her heart. So she alighted on the
wall, a little distance off, and remained watching him, hardly able to
breathe for emotion, in her own form[4], but surrounding herself with a
veil of invisibility to escape his observation. And after a while, she
drew a long breath, and murmured to herself: Ha! this is a suitor
indeed, very different from all the others; and rather than a mere
mortal man, he resembles the son of Dewaki[5], with Radha caressing him
in the form of the moonlight that seems to cling affectionately to his
glorious limbs