On one night, some thieves entered Tenalirama's house and were hiding in the  back yard of his house. They were only waiting for the opportune time, to enter  in and rob. Tenalirama, sensed that and hence collected all the money, jewels,  silk clothes and other costly things. Then, he called his wife and said in a  voice loud enough for the thieves to hear, "Of late, there are more incidence of  robbery taking place in this city. Hence, we shall collect all our valuables and  keep inside the well in our garden. We shall take it out again after the fear is  over." Then he filled up a big box with some heavy unwanted trash.

They dragged  the box to the well in the garden and threw it into the well with a heavy  splash. The thieves, who were carefully obserbing all this, heard the splashing  sound also. So, they decided not to enter inside the house. Instead, they wanted  to get into the well and take away the box. With very great eagerness, one of  them got into the well, and found that the water was very deep.They realised  that, the box can be easily taken out, only after baling out the water.

Accordingly, the thieves spent the entire night to draw water from the well.  Since, all the water drawn from the well was poured into the garden, all the  plants in the garden got irrigated. To their disappointment, the water level in  the well never went down to the extent they expected. When the day was about to  dawn, Tenalirama cried aloud, "The whole garden has been well irrigated and you  may stop now, drawing further water. On hearing these words, the thieves ran  away, Tenalirama's presence of mind and consequent swift action saved his  valuables being robbed off from his house.