He replied, “Although I press my hoofs firmly against the ground, yet as the net which binds me is strong, and my feet are sorely wounded, I cannot tear the net. What then is to be done?”
Presently came the hunter towards that spot, dressed in brown clothes and bearing a bow and arrows. The doe saw the hunter draw nigh in order to kill the gazelle prince. Having seen him, she hurriedly exclaimed in verse—
“As this is the hunter who prepared this net, exert thyself, O highly blessed gazelle prince, exert thyself.”
He replied, also in verse—
“Although I set my hoofs hard against the ground, yet [[347]]as the net which binds me is strong, and my feet are sorely wounded, I am not able to tear the net. What, then, is to be done?”
Then the doe approached the hunter with courageous heart, and coming up to him uttered this śloka—
“O hunter, draw thy sword and first kill me, and then kill the gazelle prince.”
When the hunter asked her with astonishment what she had to do with the gazelle prince, she replied, “He is my husband.” The hunter replied in a verse—
“I will kill neither thee nor the gazelle prince. Thou shalt keep company with thy beloved spouse.”
She answered, likewise in a verse—