THE VAMPIRE’S FIFTH STORY
Your majesty (quoth the demon, with unusual politeness), there is a country called Malaya, on the western coast of the land of Bharat—you see that I am particular in specifying the place—and in it was a city known as Chandrodaya, whose king was named Randhir.
This Raja, like most others of his semi-deified order, had been in youth what is called a Sarva-rasi; that is, he ate and drank and listened to music, and looked at dancers and made love much more than he studied, reflected, prayed, or conversed with the wise. After the age of thirty he began to reform, and he brought such zeal to the good cause, that in an incredibly short space of time he came to be accounted and quoted as the paragon of correct Rajas. This was very praiseworthy. Many of Brahma’s vicerege
