First, while the band was playing, peacocks’ tails were waving, and singers imitating the plaintive notes of birds, to excite the feelings and distract the attention of the hearers, the conjurer turned round violently several times, with his eyes half-closed, and caused great hooded serpents to appear and vultures to come down from the sky to seize them.

After this, he represented the scene of Vishnu killing Hiranyakasipu, chief of the Asuras, to the great astonishment of the spectators; then, turning to the king, he said, “It is desirable that the performance should end with something auspicious; I propose, therefore, to represent a royal marriage, and one of my people will act as your daughter, another as a prince, endowed with all good qualities.  But first I must apply to your eyes this ointment, which will give you preternatural clearness of vision.”  To all this the king consented.

Meanwhile, the princess had contrived to slip out unobserved, and stood among the conjurer’s people.  Rajavahana also stood ready, and the performance began.  Thus, under the disguise of a piece of acting, the conjurer, being a brahman, was able to complete the marriage with all proper rites and ceremonies without any suspicion on the part of the king that it was his own daughter whom he saw before him; and the others, also unsuspecting, only admired the skill of the conjurer in making the actress so like the lady whom she represented.  When the performance was ended, the conjurer, having been liberally rewarded by the king, dismissed his hired attendants and departed.

In the confusion and excitement caused by the conjurer’s performance, Rajavahana and the princess slipped unnoticed into her apartments, where he was safe, for the present at least, her attendants being all devoted to her, and careful to keep the secret.

He was thus able to enjoy the society of his bride without interruption; to give her a full account of his life and adventures, and to teach her many things of which she was ignorant; so that she became more and more attached to him, and admired his knowledge and eloquence as much as she had before admired his beauty.

* * * * *

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF RAJAVAHANA.

Thus the princess, listening with delight and astonishment to the sweet and eloquent words of her husband, and he never tired of contemplating her beauty and enjoying her caresses, lived for some time in the greatest happiness, without care or anxiety for the future.

One night, when both were sleeping, the prince had a remarkable dream.  He seemed to see an old swan, whose legs were tied together with lotus fibre, approach the bedside; at that moment he awoke with a feeling of pressure on his feet, and found himself bound with a slender silver chain, bright as the rays of the moon.  The princess awoke at the same time, and seeing her husband thus fettered, screamed out loudly in her fright.  The attendants in the adjoining apartments, hearing the scream, thought something dreadful must have happened.  They rushed into the room, added their cries to hers, and forgetting all their former precautions, left the doors open, so that the guards outside, hearing the clamour, entered and saw the prince.