A Total Eclipse. _Then kith and kin and home forget, and all, To sail beyond the setting-sun, with me, Where dead love's dreamy recollections call Across the sea._ I. And he stood on the edge of the city wall, with his naked sword in his hand. And he looked on this side and on that, and saw the turrets of the city jutting out along the wall, like the huge black heads of elephants of war advancing in a line. And behind him lay the city, covered over with a pall of black that was edged and touched with silver points and fringes; and before him the desert stretched away, smeared as it were with ashes, under the light of the moon. And brave as he was, his heart beat, just a very little, in expectation of what was coming. And he said to himself: My father-in-law's dismissal was not very reassuring. But where then is the danger, and from what quarter is it coming, and what form will it take? For here is nothing whatever to fight with, except the shadows cast by the moon. Or is this all merely a trick of the King to test me, before which all my predecessors have ignominiously failed? Yet no. For were it so, my wife would indeed be an actress[1] capable of reducing Tumburu to the state of ashes. [1] An actress and a dancer are in Sanskrit denoted by the same word. So as he stood, waiting, and smiling at his own thoughts, it happened that that daughter of Kirttisena, whose jealousy of the King's daughter had caused all the trouble in the King's city, came according to her custom flying towards the city wall. For every night she came to see whether there was a new suitor. And whenever she discovered one, she had recourse to a Rakshasa that was bound to her by obligations, who came as soon as thought of, and swallowed that unhappy suitor whole[2]. And now for some time, no new suitor had appeared. So as she came flying in the likeness of a bat, she looked towards the city wall, expecting to find it empty. And she saw, instead, Aja, standing, leaning on his sword, and smiling, on the very edge of the wall. And at the very first glance at him, she was struck with stupor, and she fell that very moment so violently in love with him[3] that she could hardly flap her wings, by reason of the fierce agitation of her heart. So she alighted on the wall, a little distance off, and remained watching him, hardly able to breathe for emotion, in her own form[4], but surrounding herself with a veil of invisibility to escape his observation. And after a while, she drew a long breath, and murmured to herself: Ha! this is a suitor indeed, very different from all the others; and rather than a mere