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private apartments, you must say to her that I have been sent with a message to her from her beloved Amaradatta.' When the old hetæra heard this, she was delighted, and went herself to the apartments of the princess. When Ratnamanjarí saw her, she said: 'Mother, you seem to be very merry to-day.' She told Ratnamanjarí all that cunning fellow's doings. When the princess heard this, she was rather pleased. She said: ' Then let me have an interview, mother, with that bringer about of interviews.' When the hetera had heard this, she came home, and told Mitránanda all that had taken place. At night-time she went with him to the chief gate of the palace, and said to him: 'How will you manage, my dear boy, to enter this pavilion of Ratnamanjarí, that is surrounded with seven ramparts ?' As she said this, she pointed out the pavilion of Ratnamanjarí with the tip of her finger. Then he leapt with the speed of lightning, and, bounding over the seven ramparts, reached the pavilion of the princess. He lighted in a window there, and saw Ratnamanjarí. The hetera said to herself: This must be some heroic being* to possess such might;' so she went home with this thought in her mind. The princess, seeing a man suddenly arrive, was struck with amazement; however, she pretended to be asleep, in order to see what he would do. At this moment Mitrá nanda drew his dagger and made a mark on her right thigh; and then he took the bracelet from her left hand, and returned to the house of the hetera by the very same way by which he had come. The princess bewailed her ill-luck in not being addressed by that heroic being, and kept awake all night; however, at the end of that night she fell asleep. Then Mitránanda appeared the next morning before the gate of the palace, with a bundle on the end of a bamboo, making a great panting. The warder informed the king, and Mitránanda was called, and the king said to him: Why do you look as if you were out of your mind?' Mitránanda told him the ill-treatment he had received
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* Virapurusha. I remember reading in the newspapers that this very term was used by a Bengali of an English aeronaut.
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