Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/473

passage without losing any time. Then the heat and the roar of the fire became intense and awakened the towns-people. And beholding that house in flames, the citizens with sorrowful faces began to say, 'The wretch (Purochana) of wicked soul had, under the instructions of Duryo-dhana, built this house for the destruction of his employer's relatives. And he, indeed, hath set fire to it. Oh fie on Dhrita-rashtra's heart which is so partial! He hath burnt to death, as if he were their foe, the sinless heirs of Pandu! Oh the sinful, wicked-souled (Purochana) who hath burnt those best of men—the innocent and unsuspicious princes—hath himself been burnt to death as fate would have it!'"

Vaisampayana continued, "Thus dud the citizens of Varanavata bewail (the fate of the Pandavas). And they waited there for the whole night surrounding that house. The Pandavas, however, accompanied by their mother, coming out of that subterranean passage, fled in haste unmarked. But those chastisers of foes, for sleepiness and fear, could not, with their mother, proceed in haste. But, O monarch, Bhima-sena, endued with terrible prowess and swiftness of motion took upon his body all his brothers and mother and began to push through the darkness. Taking his mother on his shoulder, the twins on his sides, and Yudhish-thira and Arjuna on both his arms, Vrikodara, of great energy and strength, and endued with the velocity of the wind, commenced his march, breaking the trees by his breast and pressing deep the earth with his stamp."

Thus ends the hundred and fiftieth Section in the Jatu-griha of the Adi Parva.

Vaisampayana said, "About this time, the learned Vidura sent into those woods a man of pure character and much trusted by him. This person going to where he had been directed, saw the Pandavas with their mother in the forest,