in crossing a river, she loses the ring, and when she confronts the king he fails to remember her and dismisses her ignominiously.  A fisherman afterward finds the ring in the stomach of a fish, and it gets into the hands of the king, who, at sight of it, remembers Sakuntala and is heartbroken at his cruel conduct toward her.  But he cannot at once make amends, as he has chased her away, and it is not till some years later, and with supernatural aid, that they are reunited.

II.  THE STORY OF URVASI

The saint Narayana had spent so many years in solitude, addicted to prayers and ascetic practices, that the gods dreaded his growing power, which was making him like unto them, and to break it they sent down to him some of the seductive apsaras.  But the saint held a flower-stalk to his loins, and Urvasi was born, a girl more beautiful than the celestial bayaderes who had been sent to tempt him.  He gave this girl to the apsaras to take as a present to the god Indra, whose entertainers they were.  She soon became the special ornament of heaven and Indra used her to bring the saints to fall.

One day King Pururavas, while out driving, hears female voices calling for help.  Five apsaras appear and implore him, if he can drive through the air, to come to the assistance of their companion Urvasi, who has been seized and carried away, northward, by a demon.  The king forthwith orders his charioteer to steer in that direction, and erelong he returns victorious, with the captured maiden on his chariot.  She is still overcome with terror, her eyes are closed, and as the king gazes at her he doubts that she can be the daughter of a cold and learned hermit; the moon must have created her, or the god of love himself.  As the chariot descends, Urvasi, frightened, leans against the king’s shoulder, and the little hairs on his body stand up straight, so much is he pleased thereat.  He brings her back to the other apsaras, who are on a mountain-top awaiting their return.  Urvasi, too much overcome to thank him for her rescue, begs one of her friends to do it for her, whereupon the apsaras, bidding him good-by, rise into the air.  Urvasi lingers a moment on the pretence that her pearl necklace has got entangled in a vine, but in reality to get another peep at the king, who addresses fervent words of thanks to the bush for having thus given him another chance to look on her face.  “Rising into the air,” he exclaims, “this girl tears my heart from my body and carries it away with her.”

The queen soon notices that his heart has gone away with another.  She complains of this estrangement to her maid, to whom she sets the task of discovering the secret of it.  The maid goes at it slyly.  Addressing the king’s viduschaka (confidential adviser), she informs him that the queen is very unhappy because the king addressed her by the name of the girl he longs for.  “What?” retorts the viduschaka—­“the king himself