XXVII
How the Fox got his White Breast
Once a fox, whose name was U Myrsiang, lived in a cave near the residence of a Siem (Chief). This fox was a very shameless marauder, and had the impudence to conduct his raids right into the Siem’s private barn-yard, and to devour the best of his flocks, causing him much annoyance and loss.
The Siem gave his servants orders to catch U Myrsiang, but though they laid many traps and snares in his way he was so wily and so full of cunning that he managed to evade every pitfall, and to continue his raids on the Siem’s flocks.
One of the servants, more ingenious than his fellows, suggested that they should bring out the iron cage in which the Siem was wont to lock up state criminals, and try and wheedle the fox into entering it. So they brought out the iron cage and set it open near the entrance to the barn-yard, with a man on guard to watch.
By and by, U Myrsiang came walking by very cautiously, sniffing the air guardedly to try and discover if any hidden dangers lay in his path. He soon reached the cage, but it aroused no suspicion in him, for it was so large and so unlike every trap he was familiar with that he entered it without a thought of peril, and ere he was aware of his error, the man on guard had bolted the door behind him and made him a prisoner.
There was great jubilation in the Siem’s household when the capture of the fox was made known. The Siem himself was so pleased that he commanded his servants to prepare a feast on the following day as a reward for their vigilance and ingenuity. He also gave orders not to kill the fox till the next day, and that he should be brought out of the cage after the feast and executed in a public place as a warning to other thieves and robbers. So U Myrsiang was left to pine in his prison for that night.
The fox was very unhappy, as all people in confinement must be. He explored the cage from end to end but found no passage of egress. He thought out many plans of escape, but not one of them could be put into execution, and he was driven to face the doom of certain death. He whined in his misery and despair, and roamed about the cage all night.
Some time towards morning he was disturbed by the sounds of footsteps outside his cage, and, thinking that the Siem’s men had come to kill him, he lay very still, hardly venturing to breathe. To his relief the new-comer turned out to be a belated traveller, who, upon seeing a cage, sat down, leaning his weary body against the bars, while U Myrsiang kept very still, not wishing to disclose his presence until he found out something more about his unexpected companion, and hoping also to turn his coming to some good account.
The traveller was an outlaw driven away from a neighbouring state for some offence, and was in great perplexity how to procure the permission of the Siem (into whose state he had now wandered) to dwell there and be allowed to cultivate the land. Thinking that he was quite alone, he began to talk to himself, not knowing that a wily fox was listening attentively to all that he was saying.