As soon as the Jackal saw those big bubbles, he ran away as fast as he could go, calling out, “Thank you, kindly, Mr. Alligator! Thank you! I am glad to see by the bubbles just where you are hidden in the mud. I would not have come here had I known that you were still around.”
The Alligator was so angry that he lashed the water to a foam with his tail. “I will not be tricked again by that saucy Jackal,” he said. “Next time, I will be as cunning as he is and catch him at his own game.”
The Alligator waited for the Jackal many, many days, but the Jackal did not return to the river.
“Who knows,” said the Jackal to himself, “but another time that greedy old Alligator will gobble me up. I will not go fishing for crabs any more. I will eat wild figs after this.”
So the Jackal stayed in the jungle and ate wild ripe figs for his dinner.
When the Alligator found out that the Jackal did not come down to the river for crabs, he was very angry. “I will follow that rascal up on the land and catch him next time,” he said.
And the Alligator crawled and crawled up on the land, dragging his long body through the jungle until he came to the largest fig tree. Here he collected a pile of wild figs and buried himself under them to wait for the Jackal.
After a while the Jackal came scampering into the jungle. But when the little rascal saw the huge pile of wild figs on the ground, he said, “Aha, that looks as though someone was buried under it. Maybe my friend, the Alligator, is under those figs.”
And so the Jackal called out cheerfully:
“The nice juicy wild figs I like to eat tumble about on the ground as the wind blows them. This great pile of figs is so still I am sure they are not good to eat. No! I will not eat those figs.”