_Angantýr_—“Young maid, thou art of manlike courage, who dost rove by night to tombs, with spear engraven with magic spells,[4.22.33] with helm and coat of mail, before the door of our hall.” _Hervor_—“It is not good for thee to hide it.” _Angantýr_—“The death of Hjalmr[4.22.34] lies under my shoulders; it is all wrapt up in fire: I know no maid that dares to take this sword in hand.” _Hervor_—“I shall take in hand the sharp sword, if I may obtain it. I do not think that fire will burn which plays about the site of deceased men.”[4.22.35] _Angantýr_—“Take and keep Hjalmr’s bane: touch but the edges of it, there is poison in them both;[4.22.36] it is a most cruel devourer of men.”[4.22.37] =The Magic Sword of Mewār.=—Tradition has hallowed the two-edged sword (_khanda_) of Mewar, by investing it with an origin as mysterious as “the bane of Hjalmr.” It is supposed to be the enchanted weapon fabricated by Viswakarma,[4.22.38] with which the Hindu Proserpine girded the founder of the race, and led him forth to the conquest of Chitor.[4.22.39] It remained the great heirloom of her princes till the sack of Chitor by the Tatar Ala, when Rana Arsi and eleven of his brave sons devoted themselves at the command of the guardian goddess of their race, and their capital falling into the hands of the invader, the last scion of Bappa became a fugitive amidst the mountains of the west. It was then the Tatar inducted the Sonigira Maldeo [594], as his lieutenant, into the capital of the Guhilots. The most celebrated of the poetic chronicles of Mewar gives an elaborate description of the subterranean palace in Chitor, in one of whose entrances the dreadful sacrifice was perpetuated to save the honour of Padmini and the fair of Chitor from the brutalized Tatars.[4.22.40] The curiosity of Maldeo was more powerful than his superstition, and he determined to explore these hidden abodes, though reputed to be guarded by the serpent genii attendant on Nagnaicha, the ancient divinity of its Takshak founders.[4.22.41] Whether it was through the identical caverned passage, and over the ashes of those martyred Kaminis,[4.22.42] that he made good his way into those rock-bound abodes, the legend says not; but though In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, And solitude, the intrepid Maldeo paused not until he had penetrated to the very bounds of the abyss, where in a recess he beheld the snaky sorceress and her sister crew seated round a cauldron, in which the materials of their incantation were solving before a fire that served to illume this abode of horror. As he paused, the reverberation of his footsteps caused the infernal crew to look athwart the palpable obscure of their abode, and beholding the audacious mortal, they demanded his intent. The valiant Sonigira replied that he did not come as a spy, With purpose to explore or to disturb The secrets of their realm,