Chandralêkhâ and the Eight Robbers

Chandralêkhâ had thus three or four times disappointed the thieves. The more she disappointed them the more she feared for her own safety, especially as she had now inflicted a life-long shame on them.

“The thieves will surely come as soon as their noses are cured and kill me in some way or other. I am, after all, only a girl,” she thought to herself. So she went at once to the palace and reported all her adventures with the eight robbers to the prince, who had been her former class-mate. The prince was astonished at the bravery of Chandralêkhâ, and promised the next time the robbers came to lend her his assistance. So every night a spy from the palace slept in Chandralêkhâ’s house to carry the news of the arrival of the robbers to the prince, should they ever go there. But the robbers were terribly afraid of approaching Chandralêkhâ’s house, after they came to know that she had a knife made out of the boring-rod. But they devised among themselves a plan of inviting Chandralêkhâ to the forest under the pretence of holding a nautch, and sent to her house a servant for that purpose. The servant came, and, entering Chandralêkhâ’s house, spoke thus to her:—

“My dear young lady, whoever you may be, you have now a chance of enriching yourself. I see plainly from the situation of your house that you are one of the dancing-girls’ caste. My masters in the forest have made a plan to give a nautch to their relatives on the occasion of a wedding which is to take place there the day after to-morrow. If you come there they will reward you with a karôṛ of mohars for every nimisha (minute) of your performance.”

Thus spoke the servant, and Chandralêkhâ, knowing that the mission was from the thieves, agreed to perform the nautch, and, asking the man to come and take her and her party the next morning to the forest, sent him away.

In order to lose no time she went at once to the prince and told him all about the nautch. Said she:—

“I know very well that this is a scheme of the thieves to kill me, but before they can do that we must try to kill them.