DRAUPADI'S GRIEF

"Howcould you consent to my beingstaked by the king who was himself trapped into the game and cheated by wicked persons, expert in the art? Since he was no longer a free man, how could he stake anything at all?"

Then, stretching out her arms and raising her flowing eyes in agonised supplication she cried in a voice broken with sobs:

"If you have loved and revered themothers who bore you and gave you suck, if the honour of wife or sister or daughter has been dear to you, if you believe in God and dharma, forsake me not in this horror more cruel than death"'

At this heart-broken cry-as of a poor fawn stricken to death-the elders hung their heads in grief and shame. Bhima could hold himself no longer. His swelling heart found relief in a roar of wrath which shook the very walls, and turning to Yudhishthira he said bitterly:

"Even abandoned professional gamblers would not stake the harlots who live with them, and you, worse than they, have left the daughter of Drupada to the mercy of these ruffians. I cannot bear this injustice.

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