'No!' said Karataka, 'how was it?' Damanaka related:--


THE STORY OF THE PRINCE AND THE PROCURESS

"In the city of 'Golden-Streets' there reigned a valorous King, named
Vira-vikrama, whose officer of justice was one day taking away to
punishment a certain Barber, when he was stopped by a strolling
mendicant, who held him by the skirts, and cried out, 'Punish not this
man--punish them that do wrong of their own knowledge.' Being asked his
meaning, he recited the foregoing verses, and, being still further
questioned, he told this story--

"I am Prince Kandarpa-ketu, son of the King of Ceylon. Walking one day
in my summer-garden, I heard a merchant-captain narrating how that out
at sea, deep under water, on the fourteenth day of the moon, he had seen
what was like nothing but the famous tree of Paradise, and sitting under
it a lady of most lustrous beauty, bedecked with strings of pearls like
Lukshmi herself, reclining, with a lute in her hands, on what appeared
to be a golden couch crusted all over with precious stones. At once I
engaged the captain and his ship, and steered to the spot of which he
told me. On reaching it I beheld the beautiful apparition as he had
described it, and, transported with the exquisite beauty of the lady, I
leapt after her into the sea. In a moment I found myself in a city of
gold; and in an apartment of a golden palace, surrounded by young and
beautiful girls, I found the Sea-queen. She perceived my approach, and
sent an attendant with a courteous message to meet me. In reply to my
questions, I learned that the lady was the Princess Ratnamanjari,
daughter of the King of All the Spirits--and how she had made a vow that
whoever should first come to see her golden city, with his own eyes,