cemetery on the river bank.

Dark and drear was the night. Urged by the furious blast of the
lingering winter-rains, masses of bistre-coloured cloud, like the
forms of unwieldy beasts, rolled heavily over the firmament plain.
Whenever the crescent of the young moon, rising from an horizon
sable as the sad Tamala's hue,[FN#39] glanced upon the wayfarers,
it was no brighter than the fine tip of an elephant's tusk protruding
from the muddy wave. A heavy storm was impending; big drops
fell in showers from the forest trees as they groaned under the
blast, and beneath the gloomy avenue the clayey ground gleamed
ghastly white. As the Raja and his son advanced, a faint ray of
light, like the line of pure gold streaking the dark surface of the
touchstone, caught their eyes, and directed their footsteps towards
the cemetery.

When Vikram came upon the open space on the riverbank where
corpses were burned, he hesitated for a moment to tread its impure
ground. But seeing his son undismayed, he advanced boldly,
trampling upon remnants of bones, and only covering his mouth
with his turband-end.

Presently, at the further extremity of the smashana, or burning
ground, appeared a group. By the lurid flames that flared and
flickered round the half-extinguished funeral pyres, with remnants
of their dreadful loads, Raja Vikram and Dharma Dhwaj could
note the several features of the ill-omened spot. There was an outer
circle of hideous bestial forms; tigers were roaring, and elephants
were trumpeting; wolves, whose foul hairy coats blazed with
sparks of bluish phosphoric light, were devouring the remnants of