And as he let these words escape him, the Siddhî-kür replied, “Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened his lips.” And with the cry, “To escape out of this world is good!” he sped him through the air, fleet out of sight.
Tale XIX.
Wherefore the Well-and-wise-walking Khan once more took the way of the cool grove, and having brought thence the Siddhî-kür bound in his bag, and having eaten of his cake that never diminished to strengthen him for the journey, as they went along the Siddhî-kür told him this tale, saying,—
The Perfidious Friend.
Long ages ago there lived in a northern country of India a lioness who had her den in the side of a snow-capped mountain. One day she had been so long without food that she was near to have devoured her cub; determining, however, to make one effort first to spare it, she went out on a long journey till she came to a fair plain where there were a number of cows grazing. When she saw the herd of cows she could not refrain a terrible roar; but the cows, hearing the roar of the lioness, said one to another, “Let us make haste to escape from the lioness,” and they all went their way. But there was one of the cows which had a calf, and because she could neither make the calf go fast enough to escape the lioness, nor could bring herself to forsake it, she remained behind and fell a prey to the wild beast. The lioness accordingly made a great feast, chiefly on the blood of the cow, and carried the flesh and the bones to her den.
The calf followed the traces of its mother’s flesh, and when the lioness lay down to sleep the calf came along with her own cub to suck, and the lioness being overcome, and as it were drunken with the blood she had taken, failed to perceive what the calf did. In the morning, as the calf had drunk her milk, she forbore to slay it, and the calf and the cub were suckled together. After two or three days, when there was nothing left for the lioness to eat but a few bones of the cow, she devoured them so greedily in her hunger that one big knuckle-bone stuck in her throat, and as she could by no means get it out again, she was throttled by it till she died. Before dying she spoke thus to the calf and the cub, “You two, who have been suckled with the same milk, must live at peace with each other. If some day an enemy comes to you and tries to set you one against the other, pay no heed to his words, but remain at one as before.” Thus she charged them.
When the lioness was dead the cub betook himself into the forest, and the calf found its way to the sunny slope of a mountain side; but at the hour of evening they went down to the stream together to drink, and after that they disported themselves together.
There was a fox, however, who had been used to feed on the remnants of the lion’s meals, and continued now to profit by those of the cub; he saw with a jealous eye this growing intimacy with the calf, and determined to set them at variance[2].