When the time came for the bridegrooms and their retinue to set off to the country of the Chandmuni Raja, they and their servants and followers all started, so that no one was left at home but their mother.  After they had gone a little way the eldest prince stopped them and said “that they could not leave their mother all alone, what would she do supposing some sudden danger arose?” The others agreed that this was so, but the difficulty was to decide who should stay; not one of the other brothers would consent to do so.  So at last the eldest brother said that he would stay, and he gave them his shield and sword and told them to perform his marriage for him by putting the vermilion on the bride’s forehead with his sword.

When they reached the home of the Chandmuni Raja they proceeded at once to perform the vermilion ceremony, beginning with the eldest daughter; but when the sword was produced and she was told that she must go through the ceremony with the sword, as her bridegroom had not come, she began to cry and make a great to-do.  Nothing would induce her to consent.  “Why was her husband the only one who had not come in person? he must be blind or lame or married;” this resistance put all the others into a difficulty, for the younger sisters could not be married before the elder.  At last after much talking her father and mother persuaded the eldest daughter to go through the ceremony; the women put vermilion on the sword and with the sword the mark was made on the bride’s forehead; and then the younger sisters were married and after a grand feast the whole party set out for the palace of the Kherohuri Raja.

On the way they were benighted in the midst of a great jungle twelve kos wide, and the palki bearers declined to go any further in the dark, so they had all to camp where they were.  In the middle of the night, suddenly sixteen hundred Rakhases descended on them and swallowed up the whole cavalcade, elephants and horses and palkis and men.  In this danger the eldest princess who had been married to the sword prayed to Chando saying “O Chando!  I have never yet set eyes on my husband; he is not with me here.  I pray thee carry my palki in safety up into the sky.”  And Chando heard her prayer and lifted her palki up into the air and preserved her, but all those who were left on the ground were swallowed up by the Rakhases; when the day dawned not one was to be seen.

As the princess from mid air gazed on this melancholy spectacle, a parrot came flying over and she called to it and begged it to take a letter for her to her husband in the palace of the Kherohuri Raja.  The parrot obeyed her behest, and when the eldest prince read the letter and learned what had happened, he made a hasty meal and saddled his horse and was ready to start; but as it was nearly evening he thought it better to wait till the next day.