Bheema did not know it, but he had carried Kunti and his brothers into a rather terrible jungle. A rakshasa called Hidimba ruled this vana.
Fortunately, when Bheema went to find water, Hidimba and his sister Hidimbi were both asleep in a tree, hanging bat-like from stout branches. Earlier they had feasted on a fine sambur stag Hidimba had leapt on from above and fastened saber-like fangs in its throat. They lived off wild game, mainly: any animal whose warm blood they could drink and flesh they could rend from the bone and soft, glutinous marrow they could suck out. Hidimba and Hidimbi ate deer, wild pig, bison, tiger and even elephant. But no meat was as succulent as man, or any other creature's blood as sweet to drink.
Hidimba, the arboreal rakshasa, was huge and sinister. As Bheema sat forlorn beside his sleeping family, a bird's sharp song roused the demon from dark dreams. As he stirred, the most alluring scent wafted into his nose: the scent of living human flesh. For just a moment, he thought he was still dreaming. Then, with a hiss of foul breath, the rakshasa came fully awake. His eyes gleamed as he pulled himself up by hand-like feet onto the branch from which he had been hanging.
Sniffing the jungle air, he rubbed his eyes and then woke his sister. She also smelt the aroma on the breeze, which made her brother drool.
Hidimba grinned hideously. "Can you smell them? At least four or five of them. The vana devatas are pleased today that they have brought us such a feast. It has been a long time since we drank human blood, gnawed human bones and sucked soft human brain out of foolish human skulls."
She, too, was snuffling the air in excitement. Her brother said, "You hunt today, Hidimbi. This is not only the sweetest prey but the easiest to kill. They may die of fright just to see you drop out of the trees. Go enjoy the hunt. If any of them runs, call me and he won't get far."
Her eyes afire in the leafy dimness, Hidimbi set off, swinging through the treetops. Hidimba lay back with a sigh, shutting his eyes again so he could smell the human scent more deeply and let his mind savor the images it conjured of a bloody feast.
Quick as a flying-fox, gliding between the trees with wings outspread, Hidimbi sped through the forest. She arrived above Bheema at his vigil. He sat on a fallen tree-trunk, his hands on his great thighs, staring dully ahead of him.
The rakshasi crouched on her branch and gazed at him and at his sleeping mother and brothers; then helplessly back at Bheema again. Hidimbi, on her hunting perch, looked down at Bheema below her, lost in his sorry thoughts and suddenly she trembled. The human male was more beautiful than any creature she had ever seen, or even imagined. He was more magnificent than her rarest dreams; he was godlike. Her eyes roved over his deep chest, his slim waist and his great arms, caressing him already with her gaze. Lithe as a wolf, she thought, but more powerful than a tiger, than ten tigers.
She breathed even harder, her heart beat more quickly than when she hunted. Powerless against the strange feelings surging in her, she moaned and her clawed hands shook like leaves in a wind. Crouched in her tree, Hidimbi felt she had become the quarry and he below her, so ineffably hand- some, was the hunter. A transformation came over the rakshasi: she shivered as with a fever and fell helplessly in love.
Her brother was forgotten and the savage thing he had sent her for. Looking at Bheema, any thought of killing him left Hidimbi: she must have him for her lover, or she herself would die.
She dropped lightly down to the ground. Softly she approached him and as she did, she was not a rakshasi any more. Instead, with sorcery, she had turned herself into a dark human beauty. Her face shone with what she felt and her form was perfect! She was tall and curvaceous; he could encircle her waist in his hands. Her breasts were high and full and her hips flared. Dark as night and as enticing, clad in a chaste white garment that set off her skin seductively, enchanting Hidimbi came up to Bheema.
