er eyes
fell straight on Aja, standing just before her. And she lifted up,
first one eyebrow, and then the other, till they formed a perfect bow,
for they joined each other in the middle. And she uttered a faint cry,
as if in joy, exclaiming: Ha! can it be, and is it thou? Or am I
dreaming still?

III.

And Aja stood, staring at her with stony gaze, like a mirror of her own
surprise. And he said to himself: Surely it is not she, but I myself,
that am the dreamer. For here since the sun rose last, I have escaped
the desert, and found this city without a man, and acquired a bride of
peerless beauty: and now here is another, rising as it were from the
dead, and seeming to expect me. And he continued standing silent, gazing
at her, sword in hand. And after a while, she said: What! is my form,
then, so frightful as to rob thee of thy tongue? Or art thou going to
use that sword against me? Speak: but in the meanwhile, let me see,
whether I have lost the use of my limbs, as thou hast that of thy
tongue, after so long a sleep. And she leaped from her little pedestal,
and moved a little way here and there, waving her beautiful arms about:
and after a while, she came back, and sat down just before him, on one
of the fallen pillars that were lying about the ground. And all the
while Aja watched her, as if fascinated by a serpent, saying within
himself: She moves like nothing I ever saw, save a panther or a gliding
snake[9]. And then, all at once, she again put up one eyebrow, and said
to him with a smile: Must I, then, actually tell thee, that I am
Natabhrukuti[10]? Then Aja said: O lady, it is obvious. For thy bent
brow would plant arrows even in the heart of the Great Ascetic. And she
said again: O husband, is this thy welcome, after so long a separation?

[9] It is a wonderful thing to see a cobra move. Nothing
can describe it.

[10] That is, _the Beauty of the arched eyebrows_.
(Pronounce _Nat_- to rhyme with _but_.)

And Aja bounded, as if bitten by a snake. And he exclaimed: Thy husband!
What! Am I then thy husband also? Does thy whole sex want to get me for
a husband? But O thou beauty of bending brows, how can he be thy
husband, that never saw thee in his life before? And only this morning,
I was still wifeless, and a day has not elapsed, since I became
another's husband. And he stopped short, again confounded at the effect
of his own words. For hardly had they passed his lips, when Natabhrukuti
st