their grief, hastens to the
rescue of the nymph. He soon returns, after having vanquished the
robber, and restores Urvasi to her heavenly companions. While carrying
the nymph back to her friends in his chariot, he is enraptured by her
beauty, falls in love with her and she with her deliverer. Urvasi being
summoned before the throne of Indra, the lovers are soon obliged to
part. When they part, Urvasi wishes to turn round once more to see the
king.

She pretends that a straggling vine has caught her garland, and while
feigning to disengage herself, she calls one of her friends to help her.

The friend replies:--

"I fear, this is no easy task. You seem entangled too fast to be set
free: but, come what may, defend upon my friendship." The eyes of the
king then meet those of Urvasi. They now part.

The king is now at Prayag, the modern Allahabad, his residence. He walks
in the garden of his palace, accompanied by a Brahman who is his
confidential companion, and knows his love for Urvasi. The companion is
so afraid of betraying what must remain a secret to everybody at court,
and in particular to the queen, that he hides himself in a retired
temple. There a female servant of the queen discovers him, and 'as a
secret can no more rest in his breast than morning dew upon the grass,'
she soon finds out from him why the king is so changed, since his return
from the battle with the demon, and carries the tale to the queen. In
the meantime, the king is in despair, and pours out his grief. Urvasi
also is sighing for him. She suddenly descends with her friend through
the air to meet him.

Both are at first invisible to him, and listen to his confession of
love.

Then Urvasi writes a verse on a birch-leaf, and lets it fall near the
bower where her beloved reclines.

Next, her friend becomes visible, and at last, Urvasi herself is
introduced to the king. After a few moments, however, both Urvasi and
her friend are called back by a messenger of the gods, and the king is
left alone with his jester. He looks for the leaf on which Urvasi had
first disclosed her love, but it is lost, carried away by the wind. But
worse than this the leaf is picked up by the queen, who comes to look
for the king in the garden. The queen severely upbraids her husband,
and, after a while, goes off in a hurry, like a river in the rainy
season.

When Urvasi was recalled to Indra's heaven, she had to act before Indra
the part of the goddess of beauty,