the guise of an ointment-seller,[1] and, with some ointment in a cocoanut-bottle, began to walk the streets of Kaivalyam city, crying out:—
“Ointment to sell. The best of ointments to cure new wounds and old sores. Please buy my ointment.”
And the other seven thieves assumed seven different disguises and also went wandering round the streets of the city. A maid-servant of Chandralêkhâ had seen that her mistress was suffering from the effects of a wound in her back, and never suspecting a thief in the medicine seller, called out to the ointment-man and took him inside the house. She then informed Chandralêkhâ that she had brought in an ointment-man, and that she would do well to buy a little of his medicine for her wound. The clever Chandralêkhâ at once recognised the thief in the medicine vendor, and he too, as he was a very cunning brute, recognised in the young lady the thief of his boxes, and found her wound to be that made by his boring-rod. They soon parted company. The lady bought a little ointment, and the thief in disguise, gladly giving a little of his precious stuff from his cocoanut-bottle, went away. The eight thieves had appointed a place outside Kaivalyam for their rendezvous, and
- ↑ From this point up to the end we shall find the story to be similar to “Alî Bâbâ and the Forty Thieves” in the Arabian Nights, though the plot is different.
