As her visitor was in appearance a Brahman, she dutifully attended to him, bringing him water to wash his feet with, and food to eat, while her eyes were straining through the forest for her absent lord. Dreading that her Brahman guest might curse her if she did not speak to him, Vaidehi began to relate the history of her exile, addressing the seeming medicant in such flattering terms as “thou best of twice born ones.” After listening to her story, Ravana revealed himself to her, and again declaring his love, invited her to become his wife in the great city of Lanka, where she should live in luxury, attended by five thousand maid-servants. Sita indignantly spurned the offer, threatening the Rakshasa with the consequences of her husband’s anger. While indulging in boastful speeches regarding his own prowess, Ravana assumed his natural form, with ten heads and twenty arms. As he stood there before Vaidehi, “his eyes were bloody,” and he appeared beautiful like unto blue clouds, being dressed in gold-hued apparel (Dutt). Approaching the adorable Sita, the enamoured giant caught her hair with one hand and her legs with another and carried her off, through the air, in his golden car drawn by asses. As she was being borne away, the fair lady cried aloud for help, invoking the sylvan deities to tell her husband whither, and by whom, she had been carried off. Her voice reached the virtuous Jatayus, the king of birds, who, though sixty thousand years old, immediately interposed to rescue her. A furious and picturesque battle ensued, in which the huge vulture-king, with his formidable beak, talons, and wings, made a gallant stand against Ravana, in the cause of virtue and his friend Rama, but eventually lost his noble life in the struggle, and left his huge bones to mark, to this day, the scene of his terrible aërial conflict with the demon.[31] The victorious Ravana carried Sita away through the air in his arms. Some of her ornaments fell to the ground as the two sped along in their journey towards Lanka, and showers of blossoms, falling from her head, were scattered around. At this sorrowful event the sun hid his face and all nature was oppressed with grief. Not yet despairing of succour, the brave-hearted Sita observed, as she passed along in mid-air, five monkey-chiefs seated on the summit of a hill, and, unnoticed by Ravana, dropped amongst them her gold-coloured sheet and some glittering ornaments, in the hope that they might convey to Rama the intelligence of her abduction by the giant. But Fate had more sorrow in store for her. Over mountain peaks, over rivers, over the sea, Ravana conveyed his prize without meeting with further opposition, and lodged her safely in his magnificent palace in Lanka, where he treated her with the greatest consideration, and wooed her like a youthful lover, placing her tender feet upon his _heads_ and professing himself her obedient slave.