विक्रम चरित (उज्जैन सम्राट् विक्रमादित्य - पराक्रम, न्याय एवं ३२ पुतलियों की कथा सटीक)

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goods, and was agreeably surprised to find the inhabitants
once more in motion and engaged in their respective
callings. Some of them, who recognised Charoo as the
former offender, seized him, and a few even ill-treated him.
At length they took him before their sovereign, who was no
other than the beautiful Chitrangee, and addressed her in
the following words :—‘ Good sovereign, we have this day
seized the mischievous fellow who destroyed and commingled
our property on a former occasion, and who is doubtless
come again with the same evil intention. We appeal to
you for justice, and trust you will punish him as he
deserves.’ Chitrangee looked at their prisoner, and at once
recognised in him her husband Charoo. She was so over-
joyed that she could hardly contain herself, so she desired
the people to leave him there, promising them that she
would see justice done. The prisoner was thereupon taken
charge of by her attendants, and by her orders conducted
to her private apartment. Charoo could not repress his
surprise at the wonderful change he beheld in everything
from what he saw on his former visit, and while he was
revolving this in his mind, and trying to assign some cause
for it, he was led away, not to prison, but to a richly-furnished
apartment. He imagined that the sovereign who now treated
him so kindly and the lady he saw on his last visit lying in the
alcove asleep, and whose beauty made such a deep impres-
sion on him, were one and the same person. He was, how-
ever, soon after visited by the queen, attended by two slaves.
Chitrangee could not help smiling when she saw Charoo
gazing on her in evident confusion, as though he had been
struck at first sight by her beauty. She on her part felt
the deepest emotion, and, approaching her husband with
tearful eyes, prostrated herself before him, saying, ‘ Dear
Charoo!—I am agitated to tears with the unspeakable joy
I experience at seeing you! Your presence in this place is
more acceptable to me than heaps of wealth or any amount
of splendour. You have dispelled the darkness of my soul,—
all is now light and blithesome within me! You prove, by