“Go,” said he to one of his servants, “and bring me a basket full of money that I may pay for this valuable stone;” and as the servant left, he turned to the Bunniah, offering him a chair, and said: “Sit down, friend.”
Now this chair was a specially prepared one, being kept by the thief as a trap for the unwary. The seat was of raw cotton, under which was a great hole into which anybody who sat on the chair would fall. It was carefully covered over with a piece of clean white cloth, so that nothing was noticed.
On it the poor Bunniah sat, and as the soft cotton gave way under him, he found himself in the hole, over which the thief carefully placed a great stone and left him, while he quietly pocketed the ruby.
As the Bunniah did not return to his home for many days, his daughter-in-law called her husband, and gave him the second ruby. “Go, seek thy father,” said she; “and if you find him, bring me back this ruby, and buy food and clothes with one you will find with him.”
The young man searched high and low for his father, but, not finding him, he decided to sell his ruby, and by ill chance went to the same merchant who had robbed the Bunniah.
The thief treated him in exactly the same way, and, after having stolen the ruby, trapped him into the same hole as his father.
Finding that neither husband nor father returned, the woman sold her jewels, and bought clothes and food for the rest of the family; but for herself she secretly bought the outfit of a policeman, or chowkidar, and resolved to work in that capacity. So she presented herself at the King’s Court, and he, taking a fancy to the handsome face of the young man (for she was disguised as such), gave her employment.
Living in the jungles near that place was a terrible “Rakhas,” or evil spirit, and that night, while on duty, the new policeman was startled by a roar like that of a tiger; but as soon as the “Rakhas” perceived him, it assumed the form of a woman, and coming up, said weeping: “The Rajah has hanged my husband, and I wish to see him once more, but cannot reach because the gallows are high.”
“Climb upon my back,” said the policeman.
The woman did so, but as soon as she got near enough she began to eat her supposed husband.