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386
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1894.
and he was for several days eagerly waiting for an opportunity to get himself introduced to one whom he considered to be the happiest prince in the world. In about a couple of months after his arrival in Bapáras, he was allowed to become the friend of the prince of Bimbalad vipa, and little by little the friendship between the two princes grew thicker and thicker, till on A certain day the Simhaladvips prince thus questioned his friend :
"O Pandiya, notwithstanding the several festivities, nantches and music that I get op day after day on your account, I now and then find that you are absent-minded. There must be some cause for all this. Though we have become bosom friends now, you have not been free with me. Tell me now, please, what lurks in your mind, and let me try my best to console you."
The prince then related all about his wife, except her banishment to the choultry, and so his listener came to understand who the pearl merchant had been. The Simhaladvipa prince laughed freely over the story, and this want of politeness enraged the vexed husband very much.
"You laugh now, O Simbala! I do not know how you would have liked these things, if your wife had behaved thus towards you," said the Pandiyan prince, to which the listener replied: -
" Thank God, O Pandiya, I have no wife. I shall never marry one."
Now that the topic bad been once mooted, there were several occasions in the next and suc. ceeding days on which they had again to revert to it. Though Ambika, disguised as the Sinhala prince, had laughed over the volley of abuse that her husband, without knowing who his listener was, had showered upon her, there was no sadder soul in the world than herself at the time.
"Thus, thonght she, "has my lord been deceived by the Vijayanagara minister, and believes me to be a bad woman and disbelieves my talisman, and calls it & magic. It is my fate to undergo such hardship. Let things only go on as I wish them now, and I shall soon win over my lord to my side."
One evening, the Sinhala prince thus consoled his friend :
"From all that I can gather from your speech, you seem to envy my happy life in the midst of so many courtezans, while you look upon your stay opposite to me all alone as a great hardship. If you have no objection, I can easily send you one of these courtezans for company."
The Paodiyan prince gladly accepted his friend's suggestion, and from that night, the Simhala prince assumed the disguise of a courtetan of Sinhaladvipa during the nights, and spent them with her lord. The Pandiyan prince never suspected that the prince and the courtezan, who visited him every night, were one and the same person. Thus matters continued till Ambikå became certain of her pregnancy, and the moment she was certain of this, her whole thoughts were fixed on Madura. But before she thought of returning there, she secured the best of his ornaments from her lord- of his finger and ear rings, garlands, and even of the talisman of lotuses which she had given him. Having no more thought of his bad wife, and never suspecting the courtezan to be a princess or his wife, he gave her all that she asked, and more. The object of the pilgrimage of the princess to Banaras was now successfully accomplished, and four full months she had spent happily with her lord.
One day, the following letter was shewn to the Pândiyan prince by the Simhala prince: -
“My dearest son! Your presence is urgently needed here. Start at once and come away. You have spent too long a time at the sacred city."
“Do you see, O Pandiya, this letter from my father P I cannot stay long. I must be off in a day or two. Though we may part now, we shall meet soon, I hope. Before I go, I went to advise you a bit, encouraged to do so by our long friendship. On your return to your country take care first to dive into the whole secret of your wife's conduct, before you think of ponishing her. She may still be chaste, and the minister's story after all a lie. He might have purchased the ornaments easily from some maid-servants."
The Pândiyan thanked the Simhala for his good advice. Now that a kind and good friend suggested it to him, this idea - that the Vijayanagara minister's version of his wife's
