appointed 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
