And at that moment, there came a great eagle, that passed in the air
close beside them, and flew away over the valley. And seeing him, she
said: O King Chand, would thy friends below believe him, were he to fly
down and tell them, he had seen thee sitting on a mountain cliff,
conversing with a woman! Then said Chand with a sigh: Art thou indeed
a woman, and not rather some mountain witch that has destroyed me by a
spell? For it is but a moment since first I entered this enchanted
arbour, and already I am changed, into something other than I was: and
short as it has been, yet that moment has contained within it as it
were the power of years of alteration. Then she said: If this arbour
of mine has wrought a change in thee, to thy dissatisfaction, surely
the fault was all thy own, for coming in, and thrusting thyself upon
me, as it were, not once alone, but many times, not by my invitation,
but of thy own accord. Blame, therefore, thyself alone, if thou hast
suffered, by reason of thy intrusion, a change for the worse. And the
King said hastily: I said not that the change was for the worse, but
only, that I had undergone a change. Then she said: But if, then, thy
change is for the better, of what art thou complaining? Surely thou
art in that case a gainer, by me and by my arbour. And he said: Nay,
neither did I say that the change was for the better. And she laughed,
and exclaimed: What! canst thou not even tell, whether this
extraordinary change that has befallen thee is good or bad? Dost thou,
then, not even know, which to prefer, thy former condition, or thy
present? And he said: No. Then she said: Of what nature, then, is
this inexplicable change, that leaves thee neither better, nor worse,
nor even yet the same, but something indeterminate, of which thou canst
give no account at all? And the King remained silent, with his eyes
fixed upon her face.
So then, after a while, she said softly: Come now, shall I come to thy
assistance, and like a physician, probe for thee thy soul, and show
thee, what thou canst not unriddle for thyself? Art thou not angry
with thyself, and only for this reason, that thou art beginning to
doubt, whether, after all, a woman is exactly only what thou hast
hitherto determined to consider her? Say, is it not so? And thy
confidence in thyself wavers, and thy soul is endeavouring to make, if
possible, someone else, rather than thyself, culpable for the wound
given to thy vanity? And the King exclaimed, as if stung by her words:
Did I not say, thou wert a witch? Then she said: What need is here of
any witchcraft? Art thou not, by thine own avowal, Chand, and who is
there that has not heard alike of Chand's delight in war, and his
antipathy to my sex? And she paused a moment, and she said: Come now;
since fortune and thy own insistence have cast thee for a moment in my
way, and this Guru seems long in making his appearance, shall I in the
interval do battle against thee, for myself and for my sisters? Thou
art fond of battles: art thou ready to try thy fortune in this field?
And the King said in confusion: Nay, for the combatants in this case
are unevenly equipped.
Then she laughed ironically, and exclaimed: What! Chand! and afraid of
a combat with a woman! Shall I compare thee, then, to a general who
has long ago taken up a position of which he boasts loudly as
impregnable, yet dare not expose it to the test? And all at once she
leaned towards him, and said, with a smile, in a tone of irresistible
sweetness: Come, bring thy charges against me, one by one, and I will
do what I can, in my weakness,[12] to refuse and repel them.
And as she spoke, Yogeshwara said to himself, within his ambush: Ha!
now, let us see what he will say. And well did he object, that the
combat was uneven, and its result, a foregone conclusion. For this
crafty little daughter of a King knows just as well as he does, that
she is herself the formidable argument, against which he has not only
no weapons of attack, but absolutely no defence at all. And even
before the battle has begun, she has annihilated all his force
beforehand, by that bewildering glance from those blue irrefutable
eyes, which stealing into his heart, have bribed and corrupted it,
making it her own ally, and a traitor to himself.