The twelfth year of exile was now drawing to a close; the thirteenth year, it will be remembered, was to be passed by the Pandavas in disguise in some city or other. Their last experience in the woods was as wonderful as any they had previously gone through. A wild stag carried away on its branching antlers the sticks with which a Brahman ascetic was wont to kindle his fire. The five brothers were appealed to by the hermit in his trouble, and pursued the animal, but could neither kill it nor run it down. Overcome with fatigue and thirst they sat down to take rest. One climbed a tree to look-out for signs of water, and having discovered them, Nakula was sent to fetch water for the party. Not far away he found a pleasant pond, but was warned by the commanding voice of some unseen being not to touch the water. He was too thirsty to give heed to the injunction and, proceeding to drink of the crystal spring, fell down dead. Wondering at Nakula’s prolonged absence, Sahadeva set out to look for him and, coming upon the pond, heard the warning voice. He, too, disregarded it, and suffered the same penalty as his brother had done. Arjuna and Bhima in turn went through the same experiences with the same sad result. At last the wise Yudhisthira came upon the scene; he prudently refrained from touching the water when warned against doing so, and entered into conversation with the aërial voice, which now took an embodied form,--that of a mighty _Yaksha_. This being of terrible aspect, interrogated the king upon a number of important points, and receiving satisfactory answers,[88] revealed himself to Yudhisthira as his father, Dharma, god of justice. He then restored the dead Pandavas to life, and bestowed this boon upon them that, during the thirteenth year of their exile, if they even travelled over the entire earth in their proper forms, no one _in the three worlds_ would be able to recognize them. The twelfth year was now nearly completed, and the brothers left the woods resolved to spend the next twelve months in the city of Virata, which seems to have been close at hand. Before entering the city they had to conceal their weapons in order to avoid detection (for they do not seem to have placed implicit confidence in the boon granted by Dharma). Just outside the city they came upon a cemetery with a gigantic _Sami_ tree. To the topmost boughs of this tree they fastened their weapons. They also hung a corpse on the tree that people might avoid it. This action of theirs was evidently noticed, for the poet tells us that, on being asked by the shepherds and “cowherds regarding the corpse, those repressors of foes said unto them, ‘This is our mother, aged one hundred and eighty years. We have hung up her dead body, in accordance with the custom observed by our forefathers.’”