So as he stood, balanced in the swing of perplexity, and doubting his own reason, Natabhrukuti looked at him fixedly, with concern and affection and curiosity in her eyes.  And she said:  Surely thou art ill.  And why then dost thou shrink from me, as though I were a thing of terror:  I, who ask for nothing but to tend thee all my life?  For it was but now, as we spoke together in this wood, I looked up and saw thee suddenly close thy eyes.  And as I watched thee, wondering to see thee sleeping as it were erect, there burst from thy lips a fearful cry, and I had but time to catch thee falling, and let thee sink upon the ground.  And I brought thee to thyself, by fanning thee, as well as I might, with this great leaf.

And she held it up before him, while he continued to gaze at her in silence.  And as he did not speak, she looked at him curiously, and muttered under her breath, as though speaking to herself, and not intending him to hear:  Can he have suddenly recollected his former birth, and is this the reason why he is staring at me, as if wishing to compare me with a picture in his head?  And as he still kept silence, presently she said aloud:  Dear, thou art sick:  and much in need of medicines, such as I alone can give thee.  Why wilt thou not confide in me?  For I am a cunning leech, and know the virtue of every herb and every vegetable drug better than Dhanwantari[16] himself.  And I have made myself mistress of every species of the art of healing, and in particular, I have fed myself on perfumes, and on the essences of flowers, and all the scented odours of aromatic shrubs, till I have myself become as it were a very attar, incarnate in a woman’s form.  Dost thou doubt it, and think me to be boasting? then try me, and I will prove to thee my power by experiment, in any way thou wilt I will soothe and shampoo[17] thee with a hand softer than a snowflake’s fall and cooler than the icy moon:  or, if thou wilt, I will croon to thee old airs, and put thee to sleep like a tired child, resting thy head on this bosom which once was thy delight, with melodies that shall speak to thee of drowzy bees and moaning winds:  or I will steal thy waking senses from thee and lure them into slumber as it were against thy will by snaring them with fragrances more luscious than that parijata blossom, which Wishnu once trailed through the intoxicated world, to drive it into madness at the moment, and leave it filled with inconsolable regret when it was gone.  See, take this, and smell it, and thou wilt be better even now.

   [16] The physician of the gods, the Hindoo Aesculapius.

   [17] The Samwahanam is one of those old Hindoo medical
   resources which we have only recently been wise enough to
   copy.