. Let the
torches be lighted, to ensure our safety on the highway.

_Maitreya._ Vardhamanaka, light the torches.

_Vardhamanaka._ [_Aside to Maitreya._] What! light torches without
oil?

_Maitreya._ [_Aside to Charudatta._] These torches of ours are like
courtezans who despise their poor lovers. They won't light up unless
you feed them.

[25.23. S.

_Charudatta._ Enough, Maitreya! We need no torches. See, we have
a lamp upon the king's highway.

Attended by her starry servants all,
And pale to see as a loving maiden's cheeks,
Rises before our eyes the moon's bright ball,
Whose pure beams on the high-piled darkness fall
Like streaming milk that dried-up marshes seeks. 57

[_His voice betraying his passion._] Mistress Vasantasena, we have
reached your home. Pray enter. [_Vasantasena gazes ardently at him,
then exit._] Comrade, Vasantasena is gone. Come, let us go home.

All creatures from the highway take their flight;
The watchmen pace their rounds before our sight;
To forestall treachery, is just and right,
For many sins find shelter in the night. 58

[_He walks about._] And you shall guard this golden casket by night,
and Vardhamanaka by day.

_Maitreya._ Very well. [_Exeunt ambo._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: During the mating season, a fragrant liquor exudes from
the forehead of the elephant. Of this liquor bees are very fond.]

[Footnote 31: The most striking peculiarity of Sansthanaka's
dialect--his substitution of _sh_ for _s_--I have tried to imitate in
the translation.]

[Footnote 32: Red arsenic, used as a cosmetic.]

[Footnote 33: Here, as elsewhere, Sansthanaka's mythology is wildly
confused. To a Hindu the effect must be ludicrous enough; but the humor
is necessarily lost in a translation. It therefore seems hardly worth
while to explain his mythological vagaries in detail.]

[Footnote 34: A name of Krishna, who is perhaps the most amorous
character in Indian story.]

[Footnote 35: Cupid.]

[Footnote 36: The five deadly sins are: the slaying of a Brahman, the
drinking of wine, theft, adultery with the wife of one's teacher, and
association with one guilty of these crimes.]

[Footnote 37: These are all epithets of the same god.]

[Footnote 38: Which look pretty, but do not rain. He doubtless means to
suggest that the cloak, belonging to a strange man, is as useless to
Vasantasena as the v