SUDARSHANA.
Afraid! Why should I be afraid? The days of fear are gone for ever for me.
KANCHI.
[entering] Queen-mother, I see you two on this road! I am a traveller of the same path as yourself. Have no fear of me, O Queen!
SUDARSHANA.
It is well, King of Kanchi, that we should be going together, side by side—this is but right. I came on your way when I first left my home, and now I meet you again on my way back. Who could have dreamed that this meeting of ours would augur so well?
KANCHI.
But, Queen-mother, it is not meet that you should walk over this road on foot. Will you permit me to get a chariot for you?
SUDARSHANA.
Oh, do not say so: I shall never be happy if I could not on my way back home tread on the dust of the road that led me away from my King. I would be deceiving myself if I were now to go in a chariot.
SURANGAMA.
King, you too are walking in the dust to-day: this road has never known anybody driving his horse or chariot over it.
SUDARSHANA.
When I was the Queen, I stepped over silver and gold—I shall have now to atone for the evil fortune of my birth by walking over dust and bare earth. I could not have dreamed that thus I would meet my King of common earth and dust at every step of mine to-day.
SURANGAMA.
Look, my Queen, there on the eastern horizon comes the dawn. We have not long to walk: I see the spires of the golden turrets of the King’s palace.
[Enter GRANDFATHER]
GRANDFATHER.
My child, it is dawn—at last!