In the beginning Gajah the Elephant and Rimau the Tiger were sworn
friends. But one day they came to a clearing and presently encountered
Lotong, the long-tailed Spectacle-monkey. And when he saw the Monkey,
the Elephant said, "Mr. Lotong yonder is far too noisy; let us try and
shake him off; if he falls to me I am to eat you; and if he falls to
you, you are to eat me--we will make a wager of it." The Tiger said,
"Agreed"; and the Elephant replied, "Agreed." "Very well!" said the
Tiger; "you shall try and menace him first." So the Elephant tried to
menace the Monkey. "AU! AU! AU!" he trumpeted, and each time he
trumpeted the Monkey was scared. But the Monkey went jumping head
foremost through the branches and never fell to the ground at all.
Presently, therefore, the Tiger asked the Elephant, "Well, Friend
Elephant, would you like to try your luck again?" But the Elephant
said, "No, thank you. It shall be your turn now; and if he falls to
you, you shall eat me--if you really can make him fall!" Then the
Tiger went and roared his longest and loudest, and shortened his body
as for a spring and growled and menaced the Monkey thrice. And the
Monkey leaped and fell at the Tiger's feet, for his feet and hands were
paralyzed and would not grip the branches any more. Then the Tiger
said: "Well, Friend Elephant, I suppose I may eat you now." But the
Elephant said: "You have, I admit, won the wager; but I beg you to
grant me just seven days' respite, to enable me to visit my wife and
children and to make my will." The Tiger granted the request, and the
Elephant went home, bellowing and sobbing every foot of the way.
Now the Elephant's wife heard the sound of her husband's voice, and
said to her children, "What can be the matter with your Father that he
keeps sobbing so?" And the children listened to make sure, and said,
"Yes, it really is Father's voice, the sobbing, and not that of anybody
else." Presently Father Elephant arrived, and Mother Elephant asked:
"What were you sobbing for, Father? What have you done to yourself?"
Father Elephant replied: "I made a wager with Friend Tiger about
shaking down a Monkey, and Friend Tiger beat me; I menaced the Monkey,
but he did not fall; if he had fallen to me, I was to have eaten Friend
Tiger, but if he fell to Friend Tiger, Friend Tiger was to eat me. I
was beaten, and now Friend Tiger says he is going to eat me. So I
begged leave to come home and see you, and he has given me just seven
days' respite."
Now for the seven days Father Elephant kept sobbing aloud, and neither
ate nor slept. And the thing came to the hearing of Friend Mouse-deer.
"What can be the matter with Friend Elephant that he keeps bellowing
and bellowing; neither does he sleep, so that night is turned into day,
and day into night? What on earth is the matter with him? Suppose I
go and see," said the Mouse-deer. Then the Mouse-deer went to see what
was wrong, and asked: "What is the matter with you, Friend Elephant,
that we hear you bellowing and bellowing every single day and every
single night, just now, too, when the Rains are upon us? You are far
too noisy."
But the Elephant said: "It is no mere empty noise, Friend Mouse-deer; I
have got into a dreadful scrape." "What sort of a scrape?" inquired
the Mouse-deer. "I made a wager with Friend Tiger about shaking down a
Monkey, and he beat me." "What was the stake?" asked the Mouse-deer.
"The stake was that Friend Tiger might eat me if Friend Tiger
frightened it down; and if I frightened it down, I might eat Friend
Tiger. It fell to Friend Tiger, and now Friend Tiger wants to eat me.
And my reason for not eating or sleeping any more is that I have got
only just seven days' respite to go home and visit my wife and children
and to make my will." Then the Mouse-deer said: "If it came to Friend
Tiger's eating you, I should feel exceedingly sorrowful, exceedingly
distressed; but things being only as you say, I feel neither." "If you
will assist me," said the Elephant, "I will become your slave, and my
descendants shall be your slaves forever." "Very well, it that is the
case, I will assist you," said the Mouse-deer. "Go and look for a jar
full of molasses." Friend Elephant promised to do so, and went to look
for it at the house of a maker of palm-wine. The owner of the house
fled for his life, and the jar fell into Friend Elephant's possession,
who bore it back to the Mouse-deer.
Then Friend Mouse-deer said, "When does your promise expire?" and
Friend Elephant replied, "To-morrow." So when next morning arrived
they started, and the Mouse-deer said, "Now pour the molasses over your
back and let it spread and spread and run down your legs." Friend
Elephant did as he was ordered. Friend Mouse-deer then instructed the
Elephant as follows: "As soon as I begin to lick up the molasses on
your back, bellow as loud as you can and make believe to be hurt, and
writhe and wriggle this way and that."
And presently Friend Mouse-deer commenced to lick hard, and Friend
Elephant writhed and wriggled and made believe to be hurt, and made a
prodigious noise of trumpeting. In this way they proceeded and Friend
Mouse-deer got up and sat astride upon Friend Elephant's back. And the
Elephant trumpeted and trumpeted all the way till they met with Friend
Tiger. At this Friend Mouse-deer exclaimed, "A single Elephant is very
short commons; if I could only catch that big and fat old Tiger there,
it would be just enough to satisfy my hunger."
Now when Friend Tiger heard these words of the Mouse-deer, he said to
himself, "So I suppose if you catch me, you'll eat me into the bargain,
will you?" And Friend Tiger stayed not a moment longer, but fled for
his life, fetching very lofty bounds.
And soon he met with the Black Ape, and Friend Ape asked, "Why running
so hard, Friend Tiger? Why so much noise, and why, just when the Rains
are upon us, too, do you go fetching such lofty bounds?" Friend Tiger
replied, "What do you mean by 'so much noise'? What was the Thing that
was got upon Friend Elephant's back, that had caught Friend Elephant
and was devouring him so that he went writhing and wriggling for the
pain of it, and the blood went streaming down in floods? Moreover the
Thing that was got on Friend Elephant's back said, to my hearing, that
a single Elephant was very short commons: but if It could catch a fat
old Tiger like myself that would be just enough to satisfy Its hunger."
Friend Ape said, "What was that Thing, Friend Tiger?" "I don't know,"
said the Tiger. "Ah," mused the Ape, "I wonder if it _could_ be Friend
Mouse-deer!" "Certainly not," said the Tiger; "why, how in the world
could Friend Mouse-deer swallow _Me_? To say nothing of his not being
used to meat food." "Come and let us go back again," said the Ape.
Then they went back again to find the Elephant, and first the Ape went
the faster, and then the Tiger went the faster, and then the Ape got in
front again. But Friend Mouse-deer sitting on Friend Elephant's back
saw them coming and shouted. "Hullo, Father Ape," said he, "this is a
dog's trick indeed; you promised to bring me two tigers and you only
bring me one. I refuse to accept it, Father Ape."
Now when Friend Tiger heard this, he ran off at first as fast as he
could, but presently he slackened his pace and said, "It is too bad of
you, Friend Ape, to try to cozen me in order to pay your own debts.
For shame, Father Ape! It was only through good luck that he refused
to accept me; if he had accepted, I should have been dead and done
with. So now, if you come down to the ground, you shall die the death
yourself, just for your trying to cheat me."
Thus the Tiger and the Ape were set at enmity, and to this day the
Tiger is very wroth with the Ape for trying to cheat him. And here the
story ends.