her old friends the tiger and tigress lived, and falling prostrate before them she cried out, "Oh, dear uncle and aunt, feed upon me; for I am loath to live."
"Mother! what do you say?" replied the tigress. "You are the light of our eyes. See, we are half dead at our separation from you. Where is the child? Where is that jewel of a boy whom I fed from my breast?"
"Uncle and aunt! he was my husband, and I have lost him," she answered. "Raja Dudhbaran's daughter, Kanchi, has married him, and now he has been cast into prison."
Then the tiger spoke. "Follow me," he said, "and I will help you to get your husband back. Take these few hairs of mine and keep them twisted in your hair, and you will pass invisible. Now let us go to Raja Dudhbaran."
In the meantime the mare, Harikali, took Malancha's letter to her father-in-law, and he having read it very attentively, at once started with a large army to liberate his son. After a long and wearisome journey he reached the malini's house, which had been referred to in his daughter-in-law's letter. After some talk with the woman, he wrote to the Raja Dudhbaran, informing him that he had come to demand the safe delivery of his son, Chandramanik, who being mistaken for a mali's son, had been unjustly cast into prison. But the letter did not produce the expected result. Dudhbaran challenged Chandra's father to a fight, and a fierce battle ensued, ending with the total defeat and capture of the latter.
Leaving him in captivity, let us see what Malancha was doing. With the tiger's hair twined into hers, she immediately entered the dungeon where her husband was, lifted his emaciated form from the ground, and embracing him, imprinted a thousand kisses on his cheeks. Delay was dangerous, and she commenced breaking the chain around his neck with her teeth, which had been made sharp and unyielding as a file by her having chewed a leaf the tiger had given her. Link after link fell to the ground,
