Note 2 — Chapter XCIII · (Vetála 19.)

Now, at this point of the story, there was a merchant, of the name of Dhanapála, in the great city of Támraliptí, the wealthiest of the wealthy. And he had born to him one daughter only, and her name was Dhanavatí, who was shewn by her beauty to be a Vidyádharí fallen by a curse. When she grew up to womanhood, the merchant died; and his relations seized his property, as the king did not interfere to protect it. Then the wife of that merchant, who was named Hiraṇyavatí, took her own jewels and ornaments, which she had carefully concealed, and left her house secretly at the beginning of night, with her daughter Dhanavatí, and fled, to escape from her husband’s relations. And with difficulty did she get outside the town, leaning upon the hand of her daughter, for without her was the darkness of night, and within her the darkness of grief. And as she went along in the thick darkness outside the town, it chanced, so fate would have it, that she ran her shoulder against a thief impaled on a stake, whom she did not see. He was still alive, and his pain being aggravated by the blow he received from her shoulder, he said, “Alas! who has rubbed salt into my wounds?” The merchant’s wife then and there said to him, “Who are you?” He answered her, “I am a detected thief impaled here,2 and though I am impaled, my breath has not yet left my body, wicked man that I am. So tell me, lady, who you are and whither you are going in this manner.” When the merchant’s wife heard this, she told him her story; and at that moment the eastern quarter adorned her face with the outshining moon, as with a beauty-patch.