The youth heard him approaching, and felt the ground tremble under his steps. Seized with despair he left the cavern, and calling his dogs, he set them on the enemy; stroking and encouraging them, he said—
"On! my brave dogs, kill him, devour him, but leave his thick leg for me."
The dogs obeyed the command of their master, and soon there was nothing left but the deformed and shapeless leg, which now he fearlessly approached, and with his axe cut into pieces, and, O wonder! out of it came a herd of most beautiful cows, one of them being as white as the driven snow; overjoyed he drove the cattle before him, taking the road leading to his father's hut.
Meanwhile the other brother having got possession of a great number of dogs, he also returned towards his home, and they both now met on the same place where they so shortly before had separated. The younger embracing the elder brother, offered him part of his herd, saying to him: "As fortune has favoured me most, take what you like, but you must leave me the white cow, for to no one else can she ever belong."
But Maszilo seemed to have placed his every desire upon this very animal; regardless of all the rest, he begged and intreated his brother to give up to him the possession thereof; but in vain were his prayers. Having journeyed together for two days, on the third day they came to a spring—"Let us tarry here," said Maszilo, "I am faint and exhausted with thirst; let us dig a deep hole, and convey the water into it, that it may get cool and fresh."
When they had dug the well, Maszilo went in search of a great flat stone, and with it covered the hole to protect the water from being heated by the rays of the sun; after the water had been sufficiently cooled, Maszilo drank first. His brother was now going to do the same, but the moment he bent himself over the well, Maszilo suddenly taking him by the hair, forced his head under the water, and held it there until he was suffocated; he then pushed the corpse into the hole, and covered it over with the stone.
With drooping head, though now sole master of the herd, the murderer proceeded on his journey, but hardly had he advanced a few steps, when a little bird perched on the horn of the white cow, and in a mournful tune sang: "Tsiri! tsiri! Maszilo killed Mazziloniane to get possession of the white cow which the murdered brother so much loved."
Enraged, he killed the bird with a stone, but hardly had he sufficiently recovered himself to proceed on his journey, when the bird again came flying, placed itself on the same spot, and repeated the same words; Maszilo again killed him with a stone, and then crushed him with his heavy staff; but within a few minutes the bird reappeared for the third time, again perching on the horn of the cow, and repeating the same words.
"Ah, Demon!" cried Maszilo, choking with rage, "I will try a more effectual way to silence thee;" whereupon he threw his staff at the hated little bird, who in such doleful tunes had stirred up and upbraided his conscience-stricken soul: he again killed it, and then lighting a fire, in it he burnt the bird to ashes, which he scattered in the winds.
