the hope of a happy meeting here above — a hope in
which I have not been disappointed.
*
*
*
Sātāgira’s palace lay close to the same ravine from
which you so often climbed up to the Terrace of the
Sorrowless but at a much steeper place, and it had a
terrace similar to the one at my father’s house. Here I was
accustomed to spend all the fine evenings in the hot
season — often passing even the whole night there,
reposing on a couch. The rocky front of the ravine, which
was also surmounted by a high wall, was so steep and
slippery that I felt certain no human being could scale it.
Once, on a mild and glorious moonlit night, I lay
on my bed unable to sleep. I was thinking of you, and
particularly of that first evening together: the moment
when I sat with Medinī on the marble bench on the Terrace
awaiting your arrival, stood vividly before my mind’s
eye. And I thought of how, even before we had hoped for
it, your form suddenly appeared over the top of the wall
— for in your passionate ardour you had easily outdis‐
tanced Somadatta.
Lost in these sweet dreams, I had unconsciously let
my gaze rest upon the parapet, when suddenly a figure
rose up above it.
I was so convinced that no human being could
ever scale this part of the wall, that I did not doubt in the
least that your spirit, conjured up by my longing, had
come to comfort me, and to bring me news of the blessèd
place where you now awaited me. For this reason I was in
no way frightened but got up and extended my arms to
embrace my visitor.
When, however, he stood on the Terrace and
approached me with rapid steps, I saw that his figure was
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much taller than yours — indeed, even gigantic — and I
perceived that I had the spirit of Angulimāla before me.
But at that I became so greatly terrified that I was obliged
to cling to the head of my couch in order not to fall down.
“Whom did you expect?” asked the fearsome appari‐
tion, coming close to me.
“A spirit, but not yours,” I answered.
“Kāmanīta’s spirit?”
I nodded.
“When you made your movement of welcome,” he
went on, “I feared that you had a lover who visited you
here at nights. If that were so, you would not be able to
help me. And I need your help as much as, at present, you
need mine.”
At these strange words I ventured to look up, and
now it seemed to me that in truth I did not have a spirit
before me, but a being of flesh and blood. The moon,
however, was behind him and, dazzled by its beams as
well as confused by my terror, I only saw the outlines of a
figure which might well have belonged to a demon.
*
*
*
“I am not the spirit of Angulimāla,” he said, guessing
my thoughts, “I am Angulimāla himself, a living human
being as you are.”
I began to tremble violently, not from fear but
because I was standing face to face with the man who had
cruelly murdered my belovèd.
“Do not be afraid, gracious lady,” he went on,
“you have nothing to fear from me; on the contrary, you
are the only person I myself have ever been afraid of, and
whom I dared not look in the eye, because, as you so truly
said, I was deceiving you.”
“You deceived me!?” I exclaimed, and I scarcely
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know even now whether joy rose up in my heart, awakened
by the hope that my loved one was still alive, or
whether yet greater despair seized me as I thought that I
had allowed myself to be deluded into separating myself
from my belovèd.
“I did,” he said, “and for that reason we are thrown
upon one another. For we both have something to
avenge, and on the same man — Sātāgira!” He spat the
name.
With the bearing of a prince, this robber made a
movement of his hand, bidding me be seated, as though
he had much to say to me. I had been holding myself erect
with difficulty and now sank down upon the bench with‐
out power of volition. I gazed at him, breathlessly eager to
hear his next words which should enlighten me as to the
fate of my belovèd.
“Kāmanīta with his caravan,” he went on, “fell into
my hands in the wooded region of the Vedisas. He de‐
fended himself bravely but was captured unwounded and,
as the ransom arrived in good time, he was sent home
without molestation. He arrived safely in Ujjenī.”
At this news a deep sigh escaped my breast. For
the moment I felt only joy in the knowledge that my
belovèd was yet amongst the living; foolish as the feeling
was, for living he was even further removed from me than
he would have been by death.
*
*
*
“When I fell into Sātāgira’s power,” Angulimāla
continued, “he at once recognised the crystal chain with
the tiger‐eye amulet on my neck as the same one that had
belonged to Kāmanīta. On the following evening he came
to my prison alone and promised, to my unbounded
astonishment, to give me my freedom if I would swear in
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