“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 forest have made a plan to give a nautch to their relatives on the occasion of a wedding which is to take place there the day after to-morrow. If you come there they will reward you with a karôṛ of mohars for every nimisha (minute) of your performance.”
Thus spoke the servant, and Chandralêkhâ, knowing that the mission was from the thieves, agreed to perform the nautch, and, asking the man to come and take her and her party the next morning to the forest, sent him away.
In order to lose no time she went at once to the prince and told him all about the nautch. Said she:—
“I know very well that this is a scheme of the thieves to kill me, but before they can do that we must try to kill them. A way suggests itself to me in this wise. To make up a nautch party more than seven persons are required. One must play the drum; a second must sound the cymbals; a third must blow upon the nâgasvara pipe, etc., etc. So I request you to give me seven of your strongest men to accompany me disguised as men of my party, and some of your troops must secretly lie in ambush in readiness to take the robbers prisoners when a signal is given to them.”
Thus Chandralêkhâ spoke, and all her advice the prince received with great admiration. He himself offered to follow her as her drummer for the nautch, and he chose six of the ablest commanders from his army, and asked them to disguise themselves as fiddlers, pipers, etc., and he directed an army of a thousand men to follow their footsteps at a distance of two ghaṭikâs’ march, and to lie in ambush near the place where they were going to perform the nautch, ready for a call. Thus everything was arranged and all were ready by the morning to start from Chandralêkhâ’s house.
Before the third ghaṭikâ of the morning was over, the robbers’ servant came to conduct Chandralêkhâ with her party to the forest, where the prince and six of his strongest men disguised as her followers, were waiting for him. Chandralêkhâ with all her followers accompanied him, but as soon as she left her house a spy ran off to the army, which, as ordered by the prince, began to follow her party at a distance of two ghaṭikâs.
After travelling a long way Chandralêkhâ and her party reached the nautch pavilion at about five ghaṭikâs before sunset. All their hosts were without their noses, and some still had their noses bandaged up. When they saw that Chandralêkhâ’s followers had a fine and prepossessing appearance, even the hard hearts of the robbers softened a little.
“Let us have a look at her performance. She is now entirely in our possession. Instead of murdering her now, we will witness her performance for a ghaṭikâ,” said the robbers to each other; and all with one voice said “agreed,” and at once the order for the performance was given.
Chandralêkhâ, who was clever in every department of knowledge, began her performance, and, by the most exquisite movement of her limbs, held the audience spell-bound, when suddenly tâ tai, tôm clashed the cymbals. This was the signal for the destruction of the robbers, as well as the sign of the close of a part of the nautch. In the twinkling of an eye the seven disguised followers of the dancing-girl had thrown down the thieves and were upon them. Before the servants of the robbers could come to the help of their masters the footsteps of an army near were heard, and in no time the prince’s one thousand men were on the spot and took all the robbers and their followers prisoners.