When she had seen him another day sporting with the rest of the youths in the water, and had asked if her husband was really like that, she determined to clear the matter up. So she lighted a lamp and covered it over with a bowl. When Kuśa had approached his wife [by night], and she [had uncovered the lamp and] perceived that he had the eighteen marks of unsightliness and a face like a lion’s jowl, she exclaimed, “Piśācha! Piśācha!” and fled away.
Now it came to pass that certain mountaineers rebelled against King Mahāśakuni. The king ordered the youth Kuśa to subdue those mountaineers, and sent him forth. When Kuśa had gone, his wife sent to say to her father and mother, “Is there no man left in the world, that ye have given me to a Piśācha? If I am to die, well and good. But if I am not to die, then will I take to flight.” Thereupon her parents fetched her away. When the youth Kuśa returned home, after subduing the mountaineers, he asked his mother what had become of his wife.
“Her parents have taken her away,” she replied.
“For what reason?”
“Because she took you for a Piśācha.”
“Mother, I will go and bring her back.”
“Do so.”
He took the shell, the disk, and the mace, and set out on his way. It happened that at a certain hill-town a great number of men sat looking on one side, having closed their gates from fear of a lion. The youth Kuśa said, “What makes you sit there like that?” [[25]]
“We do so from fear of a lion.”
“Why do not you kill it?”