There was once a hillman in a certain place who set out to increase his sins by hunting. As he walked along, he met a boar that resembled the top of Sooty Mountain. Straightway he drew an arrow as far as his ear, and recited this verse:

The fitted shaft and bow-string’s tension

He sees, and shows no apprehension;

The psychological conclusion

Is: Death has prompted this intrusion.

Then with a sharp arrow he shot the boar, who in turn angrily tore the hillman’s stomach with a pointed fang that shone like the crescent moon, so that the man fell dead. The boar also, after killing the hunter, died in torment from the arrow-wound.

At this point a starving jackal reached the spot in his aimless wanderings. When he spied a boar and a hunter, both dead, he gleefully thought: “Fate is kind to me, providing this unlooked-for store of food. There is wisdom in the verse:

The fruit of actions good or bad

In each preceding state,

Without a further effort, comes

Upon us, brought by fate.

And agian:

Each deed from every time and place

And age, as consequence

Brings good or evil in exact

And fitting recompense.

“Now I will eat in such a way as to have sustenance for many days. I will begin with the sinew wrapped round the bow-tip. I will hold it in my paws and eat very slowly. For the saying goes:

Consumption of a treasure earned

Should very slowly follow,

As wise men sip elixir dowrl,

Not bolt it at a swallow.”

After these reflections, he took into his mouth the sinew with its end hanging from the bow. And when the gut snapped, the bow-tip pierced the roof of his mouth and came out like a topknot. And the jackal perished from the pain of it.

“And that is why I say:

Indulge in no excessive greed,….

and the rest of it.”

Then the Brahman continued: “My dear, did you never hear this?

These five are fixed for every man

Before he leaves the womb:

His length of days, his fate, his wealth,

His learning, and his tomb.”

After this preachment, the wife said: “Well, I believe I have a bit of sesame grain in the house. I will grind it into flour and feed a Brahman.” And her husband, having received her promise, went off to another village.

Then the wife softened the sesame grains in hot water, hulled them, placed them in the hot sun, and returned to her chores in the house. In this state of affairs a dog made water in the dish of grain, and she thought when she saw it: “Dear me! See how shrewd fate is, when it has turned against you. Even these poor sesame grains it has made unfit to eat. Well, I will take them to some neighbor’s house, and make an exchange, unhulled for hulled. For anybody will bargain on those terms.” So she put her grain in a basket and went from house to house, saying: “Who cares to exchange sesame unhulled for sesame hulled?”

Now she happened to enter with her grain a house which I had entered to beg alms, and she made her offer there. The housewife was delighted and took the hulled grain in exchange for unhulled. Later, her husband came home and asked: “My dear, what does this mean?” And she told him: “I made a bargain, hulled sesame for unhulled.”

Over this he pondered, then said: “To whom did this grain belong?” And his son Kamandaki told him: “To Mother Shandilee.” Then he said: “My dear wife, she is mighty shrewd at a bargain. You had better throw this sesame away.

Tis certain Mother Shandilee,

If bargaining in sesame —

Her hulled grains for the unhulled kind —

Has some good reason in her mind.”

“So,” said Wide-Bottom, “he surely derives this vigor in jumping from the smell of his hoard.” And he continued: “Do you know his manner of attack?” “Yes, holy sir, I do,” answered Crop-Ear. “He comes not alone, but with a school of mice.”

“Well now,” said Wide-Bottom, “is there any digging tool about?” “Indeed there is,” said Crop-Ear. “Here is a handy pickaxe, solid iron.” “In that case,” said the guest, “you and I must wake early, so as to follow their tracks together, while the footprints still dirty the floor.”

Now when I heard the villain’s speech fall like a thunderbolt, I thought: “Ah, this spells ruin for me. For his words imply something more. Just as he has marked my hoard, so he will surely discover my fortress, also. Of this his implied meaning convinces me. For the proverb says:

Shrewd characters at sight

Can estimate aright

Their man, as some are deft

To gauge an ounce by heft.

And again:

The budding fancy first betrays

The character that strives

For birth as recompense of good

Or ill in former lives:

No marking tail has grown, yet when

You see the beggar pick

His mincing steps about the pond,

You cry: ‘A peacock chick!’ “

So I was terrified, deserted the beaten track to my fortress, and with my followers started on another track.

Then a prodigious cat met us, and seeing the whole pack before him, pounced into our midst. And the mice who survived the slaughter scolded me for picking a bad trail, and sought shelter in the old fortress, drenching the floor with blood. Yes, there is wisdom in the old story:

A deer were was that burst his bonds;

He flung the trap aside;

He violently broke apart

The hobbling snare that tied;

From woods uncouth with tufted flames

Around him bristling, fled;

The hunters’ arrows left behind;

To seeming safety sped;

Into a well at last he tumbles:

On hostile fate all effort stumbles.

Then I departed,.alone. The others — poor dolts! plunged into the old fortress. Thereupon the holy man, perceiving that the floor was smeared with drops of