“Thank you,” said the Jackal, meekly. “If I might be so free as to make a suggestion, permit me to say that the other animals might be safer if they sat as far away as possible. Otherwise, when the Hyena lets go of me, I might hit one of them instead of the tree, and that would be very unfortunate.”
The animals thought that this was a good suggestion, and went as far away as they could go without being out of sight of the execution.
Now the Jackal had saved some fat from the meat they gave him for his dinner, and he had greased his tail all the way to the tip, so that it was as slippery as a lump of butter.
The Hyena grasped the Jackal firmly by the tail and began to swing him round his head with all his might, but the harder he swung the more quickly the tail slipped out of his hand. In spite of all he could do, the Hyena could not keep hold of the slippery tail, and before he knew what had happened, the Jackal had landed on the ground and was running away through the forest for dear life. As for the Hyena, he lost his grip so suddenly that he was upset entirely, and sat down hard against a tree. And as for the other animals, they were so surprised that not one of them started to run after the Jackal until he was out of sight.
The Jackal never came back to disturb the waters of the pool. A long time after every one who had helped to build it was dead, it was still known to all the animals of the forest, and it never was dry even in the hottest weather. But the Tortoises never forgot how the Jackal came to steal the water from the pool, and if you were to go there now you would probably find one of them on the bank, watching to see that no one troubles the waters.
“Did you find that one there?” asked Mpoko.
“Yes,” said the Alo Man, rubbing the last bit of red clay into some curious marks on the shell of the little tortoise he had been decorating. “I found him by a pool where all the animals drink, looking exactly like a little brown stone in the mud.”