At the end of the third day he tried to get up, but his own blood had
sealed him to the stone! He endeavoured to move it by his struggles,
but could not succeed. "Oh dear! oh dear!" he murmured; "to think that
I should recover from my wound, only to die such a horrible death as
this! Ah, me! here is the punishment of dishonesty!" And, having said
this, he began to weep. It chanced, however, that the god of Rain
heard his lamentations, and taking pity on the unfortunate animal, he
sent a kindly shower, which, wetting the stone, effected his release.
No sooner was the Jackal set free than he began to think what he could
do to earn a livelihood, since he did not dare return to the Barber's
house. It was not long before a feasible plan struck him: all around
was the mud made by the recent rain; he placed a quantity of it in a
small chattee, covered the top over carefully with leaves (as people
do jars of fresh butter), and took it into a neighbouring village to
sell.
At the door of one of the first houses to which he came stood a woman,
to whom the Jackal said, "Mahi, here is butter--beautiful fresh
butter! won't you buy some fresh butter?"
She answered, "Are you sure it is quite fresh? Let me see it."
But he replied, "It is perfectly fresh; but if you open the chattee
now, it will be all spoiled by the time you want it. If you like to
buy it, you may take it; if not, I will sell it to some one else."
The woman did want some fresh butter, and the chattee the Jackal
carried on his head was carefully fastened up, as if what it contained
was of the best; and she knew if she opened it, it might spoil before
her husband returned home; besides, she thought, if the Jackal had
intended to deceive her, he would have been more pressing in asking
her to buy it. So she said, "Very well, give me the chattee; here is
money for you. You are sure it is the best butter?"
"It is the best of its kind," answered the Jackal; "only be sure you
put it in some cool place, and don't open it till it is wanted." And
taking the money, he ran away.
A short time afterward the woman discovered how she had been cheated,
and was very angry, but the Jackal was by that time far away, out of
reach of punishment.
When his money was spent, the Jackal felt puzzled as to how to get a
living, since no one would give him food and he could buy none.
Fortunately for him, just then one of the bullocks belonging to the
village died. The Jackal found it lying dead by the roadside, and he
began to eat it, and ate, and ate so much that at last he had got too
far into the animal's body to be seen by passers-by. Now, the weather
was hot and dry. Whilst the Jackal was in it, the bullock's skin
crinkled up so tightly with the heat that it became too hard for him
to bite through, and so he could not get out again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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