Note 2 — Chapter LVIII

Of old time there lived in a village a householder, named Devadása, and he had a wife named with good cause Duḥśílá.2 And the neighbours knew that she was in love with another man. Now, once on a time, Devadása went to the king’s court on some business. And his wife, who wished to have him murdered, took advantage of the occasion to bring her paramour, whom she concealed on the roof of the house. And in the dead of night she had her husband Devadása killed by that paramour, when he was asleep. And she dismissed her paramour, and remained quiet until the morning, when she went out, and exclaimed, “My husband has been killed by robbers.” Then his relations came there, and after they had seen his body, they said, “If he was killed by thieves, why did they not carry off anything?” After they had said this, they asked her young son, who was there, “Who killed your father?” Then he said plainly; “A man had gone up on the roof here in the day, he came down in the night, and killed my father before my eyes; but first my mother took me and rose up from my father’s side.” When the boy said this, the dead man’s relations knew that Devadása had been killed by his wife’s paramour, and they searched him out, and put him to death then and there, and they adopted that boy and banished Duḥśílá.