Several years of exile slipped away, not unpleasantly, in the shady forests through which the royal brothers roamed from hermitage to hermitage, always accompanied by the lovely and faithful Sita, whose part throughout is one of affectionate, unfaltering and unselfish devotion to her husband. On the banks of the Godavari, Lakshmana, who has to do all the hard work for the party, built them a spacious hut of clay, leaves and bamboos, propped with pillars and furnished with a fine level floor, and there they lived happily near the rushing river. At length the brothers got involved in a contest with a brood of giants who roved about the woods of Dandhaka, delighting, as usual, in the flesh of hermits and the interruption of sacred rites. This time it was a woman who was at the bottom of their troubles. Surpanakha, an ugly giantess and sister of Ravana, charmed with the beauty and grace of Rama, came to him, and, madly in love, offered to be his wife. But Rama in flattering terms put her off, saying he was already married. In sport, apparently, he bid her try her luck with Lakshmana. She took his advice, but Lakshmana does not seem to have been tempted by the offer, and, while artfully addressing her as “supremely charming and superbly beautiful lady,” advised her to become the younger wife of Rama, to whom he referred her again. Enraged by this double rejection, the giantess attempted to kill Sita, as the hated obstacle to the fulfilment of her desires. The brothers, of course, interposed, and Lakshmana, always impetuous, punished the monster by cutting off her nose. Surpanakha fled away to her brother Khara, and roused the giant Rakshasas to avenge her wounds. These terrible giants possessed the power of changing their forms at will; but their numbers and their prowess were alike of little avail against the valour and skill of Rama, who, alone and unaided,--for he sent Lakshmana away with Sita into an inaccessible cave,--destroyed fourteen thousand of them in a single day. The combat, which was witnessed by the gods and Gandharvas, Siddhas and Charanas, is described at great length, and the narrative is copiously interspersed with the boastful speeches of the rival chiefs. In the bewildering conflict of that day his fourteen thousand assailants poured upon Rama showers of arrows, rocks, and trees. Coming to close quarters they attacked him vigorously with clubs, darts, and nooses. Although hard pressed and sorely wounded, the hero maintained the conflict with undaunted courage, sending such thousands of wonderful arrows from his bow that the sun was darkened and the missiles of his enemies warded off by them. Finally Rama succeeded in laying dead upon that awful field of carnage nearly the entire number of his fierce assailants. Khara, the leader of the opposing host, a worthy adversary and possessed of wondrous weapons, still lived. Enraged at, but undaunted by, the wholesale destruction of his followers, Khara boldly continued the fight.