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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
. [SEPTEMBER, 1890.
Satyaparákrams would have given no credit at all to the conversation of the maids, had he cot known that he was daily given milk by his wife just before going to sleep. He was so much attached to her that even when he avoided the milk that night, he did not altogether suspect her. It might have been the excitement that kept him awake that night. But the suspicious way in which his wife arranged the pillow aroused every doubt. However, he gave her a full opportunity and did not leave his bed until she had time to get well away, and then searched for her secretly through the palace without success. He then proceeded to examine the town in disguise, to see what had taken place. He cursed himself for his stupidity in not having done this long before, and assuming the disguise of a beggar he left his palace by a secret way, and was soon in the streets of the town.
It was a dark night, and the presence of clouds in the sky made it darker still. Signs of approaching rain also set in, and soon the rain began to pour in torrents. In haste he ran for shelter into the cater circuit of a temple of Ganesc, where he found half a dozen neatherde - suppliers of milk to the palace collected for a similar reason. Our hero, unobserved by them, sat down in a corner. Just then a lizard began to chirp, and one of the neatherds, who was well up in interpreting such things, Raid "Friends, do you know of anything wonderful tonight?” They said :-What do we know ? We are not well read like you. Our fathers never taught us anything. If you will come out with one of your wonders we are prepared to listen to you." Said she first speaker: -"I do not know how far it may be true. But, if I am to believe in what my old father taught me, I must tell you that the lizard says that our emperor has left bis palace tonight and is now in the town." "You are a great idiot," said one of the others, " to impose upon us with such absurd nonsense. In the dead of night, when it is raining cats and dogs, what could induce an emperor to leave his comfortable palace and expose himself to the wet? You are a fool to say 80." Thus was the neatherd, who had nevertheless told the truth, ridiculed, while our hero admired from his hiding place the deep knowledge of one of his own neatherds!
A ghatiká after this the lizard again chirped, and the same neatherd said: - Friends, you disbelieved me on that occasion; now you shall all know the truth of my statement. The livard says, that in a minute the empress will pass by this very way to the minister's house !"
Again the other neatherds laughed, and said: “This is still more absurd. You can thus impose on other neatherds that know nothing of the palace. But we are all suppliers of milk to the emperor and empress, and on several occasions we have met them. Ob ! shut your mouth! Do not think that such a paragon of virtue would ever do such things." Thus did they ridicule him, but the sarcasms were hardly out of their mouths, before they heard the sing-song noise of a palanquin passing. It was a closed one, and they all then thought that after all the soothsayer must have been right in his remarks. But giving the benefit of the doubt to the empress, they still entertained a high regard for her chastity, and went away from that place. The rain had now ceased, and Satyaparakrama, admiring the knowledge of the neatherd soothsayer, and abusing himself for having so doted upon his wife who on such a dreadful night had ventured out so shamelessly to her gallant's house, and pondering over the treaobery of which she had been guilty, left the place too.
He had not gone far, before there were more signs of impending rain. So he again went into an humble verandah, to lie down and thus avoid the rain. In an opposite corner were sleeping two old B: abman travellers, a husband and wife. They had come the previous evening from Benares, and wanted to see the emperor next morning and get a present from him.
In the last watch of the night, the old Brahmap got up to observe the stars and find out how much longer it would be before the lord of the day would appear in the horison. While doing so he said: "We are most unfortanate! The tree for whose shade we have
on this point the reader will find this story similar in om respete to some portion of Renoviraping, noe ante, Yol. 1. p. 262.
