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She made a beautiful picture, with the green creepers covering the hut behind her, and the doe, which had started up in fear of the horse, pressing against her. The man was the king of the country, whose name was Dridha-Varman. He had been hunting and had got separated from his attendants.
Together the father and daughter rode back to the palace, and together they were brought before Dridha-Varman, who, in spite of the anger he had felt against his wife, was overjoyed to see her.
Dridha-Varman was now quite sure that the woman the barber had talked about was Kadali-Garbha, the wife he had so loved and trusted. "Perhaps," he thought, "she has left poison in my food, and has gone away so as not to see me die." He would neither eat nor drink, and he ordered all the ladies whose duty it was to wait on the queen to be locked up till she was found.
"No, father," she said; "let their names be forgotten: only prove to my lord that I am his loving faithful wife, and I will be content." "I need no proof," cried Dridha-Varman; "but lest others should follow their evil example, I will have vengeance on the slanderers. Name them, and their doom shall be indeed a terrible one."
Dridha-Varman said no more at the time. But he was troubled; and when the barber came again, he began at once to ask about the woman who had been seen in the woods. The wicked man was delighted, and made up a long story. He said one of the waiting women had told him of what she had seen. The woman, he said, had followed the lady home one day, and that home was not far from the palace.
Maybe the woman is indeed a witch, who for some reason of her own will try to poison you." Now Dridha-Varman remembered that Kadali-Garbha had left him the night before, "and perhaps," he thought, "at other times when I was asleep." He could scarcely wait until the barber had finished shaving him, so eager was he to find out the truth.
Mana Kanaka knew at once that the man on the horse was the king; and a great fear entered his heart when he saw how Dridha-Varman looked at his beloved only child. "Who are you, and who is that lovely girl?" asked the king. And Mana Kanaka answered, "I am only a humble woodcutter; and this is my only child, whose mother has long been dead."
Kadali-Garbha was grieved when Dridha-Varman said this, for she knew it was not true; and she looked at him so sadly that he felt ashamed of having doubted her. All would perhaps have been well even now, if he had told her of the story he had heard about her, because then she could have proved that it was not true. But he did not do that; he only said, "I cannot let you be alone so far from home.
Dridha-Varman was so grateful to his father-in-law for bringing his wife back to him, that he wanted him to stop at court, and said he would give him a very high position there. But Mana Kanaka refused every reward, declaring that he loved his little home in the forest better than the grand rooms he might have had in the palace. "All I wish for," he said, "is my dear child's happiness.
The young queen, she said, did not really love the king; and with the help of her father, who was a magician, she meant to poison him. How could this terrible thing be prevented, she asked; and she promised that if only Asoka-Mala would help to save Dridha-Varman, she would give her a great deal of money.
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