Next morning, Leopard, lying down in the street, pretended that he was dead. His wife dressed herself in worn-out clothes, and smeared her face, and went clear on to Rat's village, wailing "Ah! Njegâ is dead! Ntori's friend is dead!" Rat asked her, "But, Njegâ died of what disease? Yesterday, I saw him looking well, and today comes word that he is dead!" The wife answered, "Yes: Njegâ died without disease; just cut off! I wonder at the matter--I came to call you; for you were his friend. So, as is your duty as a man, go there and help bury the corpse in the jungle." Rat went, he and Leopard's wife together. And, behold, there was Leopard stretched out as a corpse! Rat asked the wife, "What is this matter? Njegâ! is he really dead?" She replied, "Yes: I told you so. Here is a chair for you to sit near your friend." Rat, having his caution, had not sat on the chair, but stood off, as he wailed, "Ah! Njegâ is dead! Ah! my friend is dead!" Rat called out, "Wife of Njegâ! Njegâ, he was a great person: but did he not tell you any sign by which it might be known, according to custom, that he was really dead?" She replied, "No, he did not tell me." (Rat, when he thus spoke, was deceiving the woman.) Rat went on to speak, "You, Njegâ, when you were living and we were friends, you told me in confidence, saying, 'When I, Njegâ, shall die, I will lift my arm upward, and you will know that I am really dead.' But, let us cease the wailing and stop crying. I will try the test on Njegâ, whether he is dead! Lift your arm!" Leopard lifted his arm. Rat, in his heart, laughed, "Ah! Njegâ is not dead!" But, he proceeded, "Njegâ! Njegâ! you said, if really dead, you would shake your body. Shake! if it is so!" Leopard shook his whole body. Rat said openly, "Ah! Njegâ is dead indeed! He shook his body!" The wife said, "But, as you say he is dead, here is the chair for you, as chief friend, to sit on by him." Rat said, "Yes: wait for me; I will go off a little while, and will come." Leopard, lying on the ground, and hearing this, knew in his heart, "Ah! Ntori wants to flee from me! I will wait no longer!" Up he jumps to seize Rat, who, being too quick for him, fled away. Leopard pursued him with leaps and jumps so rapidly that he almost caught him. Rat got to his hole in the ground just in time to rush into it. But his tail was sticking out; and Leopard, looking down the hole, seized the tail. Rat called out, "You have not caught me, as you think! What you are holding is a rootlet of a tree." Leopard let go of the tail. Rat switched it in after him, and jeered at Leopard, "You had hold of my tail! And you have let it go! You will not catch me again!" Leopard, in a rage, said, "You will have to show me the way by which you will emerge from this hole; for, you will never come out of it alive!" Some narrators carry the story on, with the ending of Tale No. 6, the story of Rat, Leopard, Frog and Crab. Leopard's pretence of death appears also in Tale No. 3.