Then he went to the banks of a deep river and began to play the drum.  All the other jackals collected round and were lost in admiration of the tone of the drum.  They wanted to know where so beautiful a drum was got, the first jackal said that there were many drums as good at the bottom of the river, and if they tied stones round their necks and jumped in they would find them.  So the other jackals in their anxiety to get such drums jumped into the river and were drowned, and the jackal was revenged on all his enemies.

(5)—­The Jackal and the Tigers.

Once upon a time a pair of tigers lived in a jungle with their two cubs, and every day the two tigers used to go out hunting deer and other animals that they might bring home food for the cubs.  Near the jungle lived a jackal, and he found it very hard to get enough to live upon; however, one day he came upon the tiger’s den when the father and mother tiger were out hunting, and there he saw the two tiger cubs with a large piece of venison which their parents had brought them.  Then the jackal put on a swaggering air and began to abuse the tiger cubs for having so much venison, saying:  “I am the sipahi of the Raja and the Raja has demanded venison and none can be found, while low people like you have a fine piece like this:  give it at once or I will take it and report against you to the Raja.”  Then the tiger cubs were frightened and gave up the venison and the jackal went off gleefully and ate it.  The next day the jackal came again and in the same way took off more meat.  The jackal continued taking their meal from the tiger cubs every day till the cubs became very thin:  the father tiger determined to find out why this was, so he hid himself in the bushes and watched:  he saw the jackal come and take away the meat from the cubs.  Then he was very angry and ran after the jackal to kill him and the jackal ran away very fast and the tiger ran after as fast as he could:  at last the jackal ran into a cleft between two rocks and the tiger running after him stuck fast between the two rocks and could not come out and so was starved to death.  But the jackal being smaller ran out on the other side.

Then the jackal went back to the tiger’s den and told the tigress that her husband had been caught by the Raja and thrown into prison for interfering with his sipahi.  The tigress and her cubs were very unhappy at this news for they thought that they would starve.  Then the jackal comforted them and told them not to be afraid as he would stay with them and protect them, and help them with their hunting.  So the next day they all four went hunting.  They arranged that the jackal should wait at a certain place, while the tigers beat the jungle and drove the game towards him.  The jackal had boasted about the amount of game that he could catch and when a herd of deer broke by him he tried to seize one but they easily escaped:  then the jackal was ashamed but in order not to be detected he lay down and pretended