The night was deep then. A spine-chilling silence had descended all around that subterranean secret chamber of the royal palace. Hiding outside the window, that shrewd spy of the Maharaja was also feeling exhausted and was dozing slightly, sitting in a corner. Inside the room, the temptation-showing beautiful maiden and that bone-dry, quarrelsome second old woman were securely bound in the clutches of the rope indeed, but the twisted devilish intelligence within them was still operational. Rupanjan had assumed that by binding them tightly with the rope, he had rendered them completely peaceful, hence he himself had sunk into a deep sleep, leaning comfortably against a corner of the bed with a reassured mind.
But in the middle of the night, an ultimate theatrical event transpired. That beautiful girl and the cunning old woman, through the writhing of their own hands and feet and by biting the knots of the rope with their teeth, managed to slacken each other's bonds somehow! After putting in a great deal of maneuvering, both of them together finally succeeded in completely untying all the ropes of their hands and legs in the still darkness of midnight. The moment she was liberated from the bonds, the two eyes of the old woman glittered in the dark like a ferocious cat. Swaying her waist once and stepping with absolute silence, she went straight to stand near the head of the sleeping Rupanjan.
Rupanjan was then immersed in a deep sleep, contemplating about Snigdha. Right then, that quarrelsome old woman, without making any discrimination, raised her dry yet sturdy hand and delivered two devastating slaps squarely on Rupanjan's cheeks with a loud thwack, thwack! Before Rupanjan could even startle awake and open his eyes at the resounding sound of the slaps, the old woman gripped a fistful of hair from his head in her tight grasp and began to shake it violently. Baring her teeth, the old woman hissed, "What re lad! You possess such immense audacity? You will keep our hands and feet bound with a rope? What re, did you contemplate that you would sleep like a prince by keeping us trapped like this?"
While uttering this, the old woman administered such a violent, sudden yank upon Rupanjan's hair that Rupanjan was deflected from the bed and crashed straight onto the hard stone floor, falling with a loud thud! Due to the impact of crashing onto the floor, a massive injury was inflicted upon Rupanjan's back, and his backbones groaned as if in intense pain. Clamping his back with his hand, he somehow sat up on the floor and gazed toward them with surprised eyes. He observed that the ropes of the table were rolling on the floor, and those two figures were wearing venomous smiles in front of the door.
Screwing up his face in pain, Rupanjan said, "What go you people? Have you arrived again to pester me? How did you open the bonds of this sturdy rope by yourselves, re father? How were you able to cast the rope onto the ground? Truly, I observe that you people are each absolute bandits and sorcerers! Go, if you desire your own well-being, go back and sleep quietly, otherwise this time I will truly pinch the cheeks of both of you, pour the entire table's vial of sleeping medicine inside your mouths, and force you to sleep!"
Hearing this stern rebuke of Rupanjan, that quarrelsome old woman did not display fear at all; rather, she burst into a fiendish giggle of laughter. Wagging her finger right in front of Rupanjan's nose, she said, "No, no, no lad! Tonight is our very last night with you! After merely a little while, morning will break, and you will pass this test? It isn't that simple, re child! I will not allow you to pass this test under any circumstances! Tonight, I will provoke you to such a degree of rage, I will hurl such filthy words at you, that in the end, unable to manage your anger, you will definitely raise your hand against this old body of mine! You will strike us, and the moment you strike, you will fail this test!"
The moment this abrupt truth emerged from the mouth of the old woman, Rupanjan received a massive shock within his mind. He was thoroughly startled in his thoughts, and in a single instant, the entire matter became as clear as water through the illumination of his intellect. He thought to himself, "Oh! That means by keeping me trapped inside this room, the Maharaja actually desired to test precisely whether I can regulate my own rage even in the face of extreme humiliation! This old woman and this girl are actually people dispatched by the King himself, who are continuously attempting to provoke my anger and make me raise my hand against them! Wah Bhagwan! I have unraveled the actual mystery itself! Now, I will never, under any circumstances, raise my hand against this Dida. This time, I will definitely pass this test! No matter how much this old woman increases my rage and no matter how much this beautiful girl displays tantrums, I will not step into their trap at all!"
After making this rigid vow within his own mind, Rupanjan wore a trace of a victorious smile. Gazing toward the table, he observed that the potent vial of sleeping medicine was half full. Without wasting another single moment of time, right before the eyes of the old woman and the beautiful girl, he lifted that vial of sleeping medicine from the table. Then, in a single gulp, he swallowed the entire remainder of that medicine himself!
Consuming the medicine, he immediately lay down upon the bed, and looking toward them, said, "However much you may attempt, I am no longer paying heed to your words." No sooner had he uttered this statement than, under the influence of that potent medicine, the two eyelids of Rupanjan became heavy like a massive stone, and he plunged into a deep, motionless sleep. He was so unconscious now that even if the universe shattered around him, there was no way for his eyes to open.
Witnessing Rupanjan collapse into sleep in that manner, that beautiful maiden and the second quarrelsome old woman became utterly dumbfounded. They comprehended that the boy had unraveled their actual strategy. Growing furious, the old woman said, "What! Right before our eyes, he consumed the sleeping medicine and fell asleep? Wait, let me observe how I shatter your sleep today!"
Thereafter, the ultimate midnight carnage of those two women commenced. That beautiful girl dismantled a massive brass bell from the wall of the royal palace, brought it right beside Rupanjan's ear, and began to ring it violently— clang! clang! clang! The entire room was vibrating at the monstrous sound of the bell, but Rupanjan's ears had turned to stone, as it were; he did not stir a single inch. Following this, that quarrelsome old woman and the beautiful girl began to leap heavily and loudly upon the wooden floor of the room; dust was flying from the floor due to the impact of their kicks, but a deep layer of sleep was still present within Rupanjan's eyes.
Observing that no result was being yielded even by that, the old woman became extremely infuriated and approached Rupanjan again. Catching the roots of Rupanjan's hair tightly with her two hands, she began to shake it like a serpent, moving his head from side to side; yet, Rupanjan remained immersed in a deep sleep. To vent her own rage, the old woman delivered four more sturdy slaps squarely upon Rupanjan's cheeks. Due to the impact of the slaps, Rupanjan's cheeks turned crimson, but under the spell of the sleeping medicine, he did not receive a trace of the sensation of pain; his eyes remained closed.
In the end, becoming desperate, that beautiful girl and the quarrelsome old woman united. Combining together, the two of them gripped Rupanjan's two legs tightly with their hands, administered a sudden upward yank, and suspended him completely upside down in mid-air! While suspending a young grown lad in that manner by holding his legs, the waist of the old woman and the beauty themselves came on the verge of breaking. But the wondrous matter was, even while suspended in an upside-down state, Rupanjan continuously remained asleep, snoring loudly!
When no result was achieved even through that, both of them together lifted Rupanjan bodily, carried him, and flung him from the bed straight into a corner of the floor! But even after falling onto the floor, Rupanjan's body remained motionless like an inanimate object. No symptom of his eyes opening was visible at all.
From midnight until the breaking of dawn, even after executing a thousand such tortures, shrieking, ringing the bell, and delivering slaps and cuffs, when Rupanjan's eyes did not open even a fraction, that beautiful girl and the quarrelsome old woman lost all the energy of their bodies and became completely exhausted and fatigued. Their own hands and legs were trembling in pain then.
Finally abandoning all hope, the old woman collapsed with a thud in a corner of the floor while panting heavily, and said, "Oh dear father, oh dear father! This is no human being, re, this is the absolute father of Kumbhakarna! We struck him so much, slapped him so much, yet the lad's sleep did not shatter! All our strategies failed completely!" The beautiful girl also wiped the sweat of her face with the veil of her saree and lay down upon the bed. In this manner, through the strange intelligence, extraordinary patience, and the protection of that red underwear of Rupanjan, that terrifying and mysterious night of the first day finally passed away, and the light of dawn commenced to break.