And he saw a hermit's daughter of marvellous beauty under an ashoka tree with another girl. She had no ornaments but flowers. She was charming even in a dress made of bark. She was particularly attractive because of her thick masses of hair arranged in a girlish way.
[Illustration: The giant laughed aloud, spit fire in his wrath, and showed his dreadful fangs.]
And the king fell in love with her and thought: "Who is she? Is she a goddess come to bathe in these waters? Or Gauri, separated from her husband Shiva, leading a hard life to win him again? Or the lovely moon, taking a human form, and trying to be attractive in the daytime? I will go to her and find out."
So he drew near to her. And when she saw him coming, she was astonished at his beauty and dropped her hands, which had been weaving a garland of flowers. And she thought: "Who can he be in this forest? Some fairy perhaps. Blessèd are my eyes this day."
So she rose, modestly looking another way, and started to go away, though her limbs failed her. Then the king approached and said: "Beautiful maiden, I have come a long distance, and you never saw me before. I ask only to look at you, and you should welcome me. Is this hermit manners, to run away?"
Then her clever friend made the king sit down and treated him as an honoured guest. And the king respectfully asked her: "My good girl, what happy family does your friend adorn? What are the syllables of her name, which must be a delight to the ear? Or why at her age does she torture a body as delicate as a flower with a hermit's life in a lonely wood?"
And the friend answered: "Your Majesty, she is the daughter of the hermit Kanva and the heavenly nymph Menaka. She grew up here in the hermitage, and her name is Lotus-bloom. With her father's permission she came here to the lake to bathe. And her father's hermitage is not far from here."
Then the king was delighted. He mounted his horse and rode to the hermitage of holy Kanva, to ask for the girl. And he entered the hermitage in modest garb, leaving his horse outside. Then he was surrounded by hermits with hoary crowns and bark garments like the trees, and saw the sage Kanva radiant and cool like the moon. And he drew near and fell at his feet.