The ocean of story, being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's ...

188 THE OCEAN OF STORY
and fall at his feet, and say to him from me :
'
My husband,
the Creator has formed me of such strange wood that, though
the fire of separation from you burns fiercely, I have not yet
been consumed by it. But it is because I entertain a hope
of seeing you again that I have not abandoned life.' When
you have said this, tell him the revelation that Siva made
to me in a dream, then ask him about the marriage of our
daughters, and come back and tell me what he says. I will
then act accordingly."
When she had said this she sent off Indumati ; and she
left Patala and reached the well-guarded entrance of that
mountain cave. She entreated the guards and entered, and
seeing Trailokyamalin there a prisoner, she burst into tears,
and embraced his feet. And when he asked her how she was,
she slowly told him all his wife's message. Then that king
said : "As for what Siva says about my restoration to my
kingdom, may that turn out as the god announced ;
but the
idea of my giving my daughters to the sons of Merudhvaja
is preposterous ! I would rather perish here than give my
daughters as a present to enemies, and men too, while myself
"
a !
prisoner
When Indumati had been sent away by the king with
this message, she went and delivered it to his wife, Svayamprabha.
And when Trailokyaprabha and Tribhuvanaprabha,
the daughters of the Daitya sovereign, heard it, they said
to their mother, Svayamprabha : "Anxiety lest our youthful
purity should be outraged makes the fire seem our only place
of safety, so we will enter it, mother, on the fourteenth day,
that is now approaching."
When they had thus resolved, their mother and her suite
also made up their minds to die. And when the fourteenth
day arrived, they all worshipped Hatakesvara, and made
pyres in a holy bathing-place called Paparipu.
Now it happened that on that very day King Merudhvaja,
with his sons and his wife, was coming there to worship
Hatakesvara. And as he was going to the holy water of
Paparipu, with his suite, to bathe, he saw smoke arising from
the midst of a grove on its bank. And when the king asked,
"How comes smoke to be rising here?" those governors he