The Talking Thrush Part 6

"What shall I pay you, brother Jackal? I am a very poor Camel."

"You shall pay me," quoth the Jackal, "a pound of your flesh."

This was a hard condition, but there was nothing for it, "Better to lose a pound of my flesh," thought the Camel, "than lose my life." So he agreed to pay the Jackal a pound of flesh.

Then the Jackal set the Camel free, and the Camel sat down on the ground and said--

"I am ready; take your pound of flesh."

"Open your mouth, then," said the Jackal.

"Why?" asked the Camel.

"Because I choose to take my pound of flesh from your tongue."

This was a terrible blow. The Camel could not agree, because he knew that if his tongue were torn out, he was bound to die.

So he said, "I did not promise you my tongue."

"You did," said the Jackal.

"Don't tell lies," said the Camel; "where are your witnesses?"

Away trotted the Jackal to find a witness. First he asked the Lion if he would bear witness that he heard the Camel promise to give his tongue.

He promised to give him the half of all he should get, as a reward.

"Go away," said the King of Beasts; "I am a Lion, not a liar."

Then he asked the Tiger, but the Tiger said--

"I don't care for Camel's meat, so it isn't worth my while."

And so the Jackal tried one beast after another, but none of them would help him, until he came to the Wolf.

"Friend Wolf," said the Jackal, "if you will only swear that you heard the Camel promise me his tongue, you shall have half."

"Half a tongue?" quoth the Wolf; "that's poor provender."

"No, no," said the Jackal, "half the Camel. Don't you see that if we tear out his tongue, the Camel will soon bleed to death."

"True, so he will," said the Wolf. "Well, I agree."

So the Wolf and the Jackal went back to the Camel, and the Wolf said, raising his right forepaw to heaven--

"I swear by heaven that I heard this Camel promise to give his tongue to this Jackal."

Of course this was a lie, and they all knew it; but the Camel did not like to appear mean, and besides, they were two to one.

"Very well," said the Camel; "come and take it." The Camel opened his mouth wide. The Jackal put his head in the Camel's mouth, and as he did so, the Camel curled his tongue backward, so that the Jackal could not reach it.

The Jackal pulled his head out again, and said to the Wolf--

"My mouth is too small, you try now--you have a big gape."

Then the Wolf put his head in the Camel's mouth. The Camel curled his tongue back and back, and the Wolf pushed in his head further and further; at last all the Wolf's head was inside. Then the Camel snapped his jaws together upon the Wolf's neck.

"O Daddy Camel," said the Wolf, half throttled; "what is this?"

"This," said the Jackal, rolling up the whites of his eyes to the sky in a most pious fas.h.i.+on; "this is the result of telling a lie." The Camel said nothing at all, but simply throttled the Wolf to death, and the Jackal ran away.

I think you will agree with me, that the Jackal, who made the Wolf tell a lie, was wickeder than the Wolf who told it; but yet he laughed at the Wolf, and got off himself scot-free. That often happens in this world; but we will hope that some other time his sin was bound to find him out.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Wise Old Shepherd

ONCE upon a time, a snake went out of his hole to take an airing. He crawled about, greatly enjoying the scenery and the fresh whiff of the breeze, until, seeing an open door, he went in. Now this door was the door of the palace of the King, and inside was the King himself, with all his courtiers.

Imagine their horror at seeing a huge Snake crawling in at the door.

They all ran away except the King, who felt that his rank forbade him to be a coward, and the King's son. The King called out for somebody to come and kill the Snake; but this horrified them still more, because in that country the people believed it to be wicked to kill any living thing, even snakes, and scorpions, and wasps. So the courtiers did nothing, but the young Prince obeyed his father, and killed the Snake with his stick.

After a while the Snake's wife became anxious, and set out in search of her husband. She too saw the open door of the palace, and in she went. O horror! there on the floor lay the body of her husband, all covered with blood, and quite dead. No one saw the Snake's wife crawl in; she inquired from a white ant what had happened, and when she found that the young Prince had killed her husband, she made a vow, that as he had made her a widow, so she would make his wife a widow.

That night, while all the world was asleep, the Snake crept into the Prince's bedroom, and coiled around his neck. The Prince slept on, and when he awoke in the morning, he was surprised to find his neck encircled with the coils of a Snake. He was afraid to stir, so there he remained, until the Prince's mother became anxious, and went to see what was the matter. When she entered his room, and saw him in this plight, she gave a loud shriek, and ran off to tell the King.

"Call the archers," said the King. The archers came, and the King told them to go into the Prince's room, and shoot the Snake that was coiled about his neck. They were so clever, that they could easily do this without hurting the Prince at all.

In came the archers in a row, fitted the arrows to the bows, the bows were raised ready to shoot, when, on a sudden, from the Snake there issued a voice, which spoke as follows:--

"O archers! wait, and hear me before you shoot. It is not fair to carry out the sentence before you have heard the case. Is not this good law, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth? Is it not so, O King?"

"Yes," replied the King, "that is our law."

"Then," said the Snake, "I plead the law. Your son has made me a widow, so it is fair and right that I should make his wife a widow."

"That sounds right enough," said the King, "but right and law are not always the same thing. We had better ask somebody who knows."

They asked all the judges, but none of them could tell the law of the matter. They shook their heads, and said they would look up all their law-books, and see whether anything of the sort had ever happened before, and if so, how it had been decided. That is the way judges used to decide cases in that country, though I daresay it sounds to you a very funny way. It looked as if they had not much sense in their own heads, and perhaps that was true. The upshot of all was, that not a judge would give any opinion; so the King sent messengers all over the country-side, to see if they could find somebody somewhere who knew something.

One of these messengers found a party of five Shepherds, who were sitting upon a hill and trying to decide a quarrel of their own. They gave their opinions so freely, and in language so very strong, that the King's messenger said to himself, "Here are the men for us. Here are five men, each with an opinion of his own, and all different."

Post-haste he scurried back to the King, and told him he had found at last some one ready to judge the knotty point.

So the King and the Queen, and the Prince and the Princess, and all the courtiers, got on horseback, and away they galloped to the hill whereupon the five Shepherds were sitting, and the Snake too went with them, coiled round the neck of the Prince.