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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1891.
a pilgrimage to the holy Ganges, and that he would return in the course of three or four years. These hints had purposely been dropped on his way by the clever Atirûpa, and he had managed so well that he gave hope and yet no hope. So his aged parents, after a good deal of searching, gave up their pursuit as hopeless. Sometimes they thought that Atirûpa had gone to the north on a pilgrimage ; at other times that he had gone to some unknown place.
“I told you, wife, that we are so unfortunate in this world that our son would be of no service to us. First I thought that it meant his death, at the age of eighteen, according to my calculations. Atirûpa cleverly proved this to be false, but what of that after all? He may live for a hundred years, but he has left us! Let him prosper somewhere or other happily. Enough if he returns before we die and consoles us. But I do not think that such happiness will ever occur to us."
Thus Satyavák continued to console his poor wife, and little by little the pair ceased to sorrow for their lost son.
To return to Chandragiri, where we left our hero asleep. Chandragiri was governed by a king, who had a very beautiful and educated daughter. He searched for a suitable match for a long time, and, confiding in his minister, one day he called him to his side, and said to him :
"My good minister, my daughter, the princess, is growing older day by day, and still you have secured no suitable match for her. How long are we to be kept in anxiety ?
The minister replied: - "My lord ! Give me leave for a month, and I will go down to the southern countries, and get yon portraits of all the princes in that direction. Your Majesty can choose the most beautiful face from among them."
"Very well," said the king, and granted him leave. But the minister was a treacherous rogue, and never utilized his leave for any journey to the south. He spent the whole of it quietly in some distant corner of the king's dominions, drawing from pare imagination balf a dozen awkward pictures of several supposed princes of the south. On the expiry of his leave the minister produced these piotures and said:
“My most gracious sovereign, with the nimble feet of a deer I have roamed over all the southern countries, and bring you these pictures. This picture represents the face of the Påndyan Prince, than whom no handsomer man ever existed in the south. That picture represents the Chêra Yuvarâja. That one represents the Chôļa Prince."
"Throw them all away," said the king, "I do not like even a single face from among them." How could be, when they had been purposely made awkward by the canning minister ?
Again after one or two months the minister took leave for a journey to the north to tetch suitable bridegroomis, and this time, also, the same trick was played. Thus did the minister deceive the Chandragiri sovereign several times, till the old king was entirely disappointed, believing that all his minister had said was truth, and nothing but the truth.
Now, besides his daughter, the king had no child, and so, after her father, the whole kingdom of Chandragiri would devolve upon her; and he who married her would become the King of Chandragiri. The minister of Chandragiri had a fair son, but he was not educated, and his father determined to get him married to the princess, and thus place him on the throne. So he made the king think there was no prince, whom he could choose as a fit bridegroom for his only daughter. The king was lost in meditation, and did not know what to do. But one evening the minister suddenly appeared with another picture in his hand, and with a joyful face.
• What! Have you, after all, succeeded in finding a suitable match ?" asked the king.
