The king replies, "Many thanks for your kind offer. But how can I accept your offer as this body belongs to a Chandal? I will not go anywhere before death."
The hermit says, "Then take this money and deliver your wife."
The king thankfully declines the offer with the observation, "I have sold my queen in my hour of need. To buy her back is not in my power." The hermit soliloquizes,
"Blessed is Maharaja Harischandra! What fortitude! what wisdom! what generosity! what a sense of duty! The world has never produced a nobler man. A tempest shakes even the mountains, but behold! this noblest specimen of humanity is not moved by the severest of afflictions!
It is morning. The birds are singing. The sun is up in the horizon. The king is sitting on the banks of the Ganges. He is thinking of his fate when he hears a female voice crying. He approaches the lady. The scene is horrible. An unfortunate lady, the queen Saibya who had been deserted by her husband, has come to burn her son, the support of her life. She was serving as a slave in the house of the Brahmin who had bought her. Her son Rohitashya, was stung by a deadly poisonous snake. No body would help her. She has come to the burning-ground to burn the dead body of her son. The queen weeps and faints. The king stares at the face of the corpse for a long time and at last recognises his dead son. He too faints. After a long time he recovers, and finds that the queen also has recovered. He thinks of committing suicide, but the body is not his own. He thinks of pacifying the queen by introducing himself, but his present costume will perhaps aggravate her sorrows. The queen, looking up to the skies, exclaims; "It is high time for me to return to the house of my master. I forget I am a slave. My master will be angry if I am late. My husband will incur blame if my master is angry. Let me go at once."
The king reflects, "If my queen is so mindful of her duties to her master in the midst of such calamities, I must never forget my duty to my master."
Then he approaches the queen and addresses her thus:—
"Who are you? You are not allowed to burn the corpse before you give up its clothes to me, the slave of the lord of this place." She replies,
"Please wait a little. I will take off the clothes."
As the queen delivers the clothes into the hands of the slave, she notices signs of royalty in his hands and is surprised that such a hand is engaged in so low an office.