[5] When she was lost in the gambling match, and Duhshasana
   tried to strip her, still as he pulled off one dress,
   another appeared below it, refusing to leave her naked.

And night after night he went on, growing every night a little weaker.  And then at last there came a night when as he toiled along with heavy steps that flagged as it were with loaded feet, faint with hunger and burning thirst, he said to himself:  I am nearly spent, and now the end is coming near, either of the sand, or me.  And then the sun rose behind him, and he looked up, and lo! it was reflected from the wall of a city before him, which resembled another sun of hope rising in the west to cheer him.  And he rubbed his eyes, and looked again, saying to himself:  Is it a delusion of the desert, to mock me as I perish, or is it really a true city?  And he said again:  Ha! it is a real city.  And his ebbing strength came back to him with a flood of joy.  And he stooped, and took up a little sand, and turned, and threw it back, exclaiming:  Out upon thee, abode of death![6] Now, then, I have beaten thee, and thy victim will after all escape.  And he hurried on towards the city, half afraid to take his eyes away from it for a single instant, lest it should disappear.

   [6] Still the name of Marwar.

So as he drew near it, he saw a crowd upon its wall.  And when he was distant from it but a little way, suddenly its great gate’s mouth was thrown open, and a stream of people shot from it like a long tongue, and rapidly came towards him, so that he said to himself:  Ha! then, as it seems, I am expected by the citizens of this delightful city, who are as eager to come to me as I am to get to them.  And they came closer, clamouring and buzzing as it were like bees; and he looked and lo! they were all women, and there was not a man among them all.  And as he wondered, they ran up, and reached him, and threw themselves upon him like a wave of the sea, laughing and crying, and drowning him in their embraces:  and they took him as it were captive, and swept him away towards the city, all talking at once, and deafening him with their joyful exclamations, paying not the least attention to anything that he tried to say.  And Aja let himself go, carried away by all those women like a leaf in a rushing stream.  And he said to himself, in astonishment:  What is this great wonder?  For all these women fight for me, as if they had never seen a man in their lives before.  Where then can the men be, to whom they must belong?  Or can it be, that I have come to a city composed of women without a man?  Have I escaped the desert, only to be drowned in a sea of women?  For what is the use of a single man, in an ocean of the other sex?  Or are they dragging me away to offer me up to the Mother[7], having sacrificed all their own husbands already?  Or have I really died in the desert, and is all this only a dream of the other world?  Can these be the heavenly Apsarases, come in a body to fetch me away, as if I had fallen in battle?  Surely they are, for some of them are sufficiently beautiful even for Indra’s hall.  And anyhow, it is better to be torn to pieces by beautiful women, even if there are far too many, than to die in the desert, all alone.