She loves a man whom her father wishes her to lure to his death by her singing, and she sings entrancingly enough to bring about the meeting between her lover's back and her father's knife.

That she does not warble herself into the position of "particeps criminis" in a murder she owes only to the bungling of the old man.

Having done this, however, she turns physician and nurse and brings the wounded man back to health, thus sacrificing her love to the duty which her lover thinks he owes to the invaders of her country and oppressors of her people.
After this she makes the fatal application of her botanical knowledge.
Such things come about when one goes to India for an operatic heroine.
The feature of the libretto which Delibes has used to the best purpose is its local color.

His music is saturated with the languorous spirit of the East.

Half a dozen of the melodies are lovely inventions, of marked originality in both matter and treatment, and the first half hour of the opera is apt to take one's fancy completely captive.