Then some of them said, “There is only one way of finding out. What need is there to seek out others? The dogs must be given a hair-pellet and made to vomit.”
When the pellet of hair had been given to the dogs, and they had been made to vomit, Gaṇḍa and Upagaṇḍa brought up fragments of leather. When the king had been informed of this, he delivered those dogs over to death. But he rendered the others free from fear. [[344]]
XL.
THE HYPOCRITICAL CAT.[1]
In long-past times there was a chieftain of a company of mice who had a retinue of five hundred mice. And there was also a cat named Agnija. In his youth he had been wont to kill all the mice in the neighbourhood of his dwelling-place. But afterwards, when he had grown old, and no longer had the power of catching mice, he thought: “In former times, when I was young, I was able to catch mice by force. But now that I can do so no more, I must use some trick in order to make a meal off them.” So he began to watch the mice by stealth. By means of such watching he found out that there were five hundred mice in the troop.
At a spot not far distant from the mouse-hole, he took to performing fictitious acts of penance, and the mice, as they ran to and fro, saw him standing there with pious mien. So they cried out to him from a distance, “Uncle, what are you doing?”
The cat replied, “As in my youth I have perpetrated many vicious actions, I am now doing penance in order to make up for them.”