only a small loin-cloth (laṅgôṭî), a span in breadth and a cubit in length.
The idea that they had conquerred ten men, and plundered all their property, now took possession of the robbers’ minds. They seated themselves like three monarchs before the men they had plundered, and ordered them to dance to them before returning home. The merchants now mourned their fate. They had lost all they had, except their chief essential, the laṅgôṭî, and still the robbers were not satisfied, but ordered them to dance.
There was, among the ten merchants, one who was very intelligent. He pondered over the calamity that had come upon him and his friends, the dance they would have to perform, and the magnificent manner in which the three robbers had seated themselves on the grass. At the same time he observed that these last had placed their weapons on the ground, in the assurance of having thoroughly cowed the traders, who were now commencing to dance. So he took the lead in the dance, and, as a song is always sung by the leader on such occasions, to which the rest keep time with hands and feet, he thus began to sing:—
Nâmânum puli per,
Tâlanum tiru pêr:
Sâvana tâḷanai
Tiruvaṇan s’uttinân,
Sâvana tâlan mîdi
Tâ tai tôm tadingaṇa.
