a cross-shaped hook. But that goat I accepted, and went down to the
Ghaut in great honour. Later, my Fate sent me the boatman who had
desired to cut off my tail with an axe. His boat grounded upon an old
shoal which you would not remember."

"We are not ALL jackals here," said the Adjutant. "Was it the shoal made
where the stone-boats sank in the year of the great drouth--a long shoal
that lasted three floods?"

"There were two," said the Mugger; "an upper and a lower shoal."

"Ay, I forgot. A channel divided them, and later dried up again," said
the Adjutant, who prided himself on his memory.

"On the lower shoal my well-wisher's craft grounded. He was sleeping in
the bows, and, half awake, leaped over to his waist--no, it was no more
than to his knees--to push off. His empty boat went on and touched again
below the next reach, as the river ran then. I followed, because I knew
men would come out to drag it ashore."

"And did they do so?" said the Jackal, a little awe-stricken. This was
hunting on a scale that impressed him.

"There and lower down they did. I went no farther, but that gave me
three in one day--well-fed manjis (boatmen) all, and, except in the
case of the last (then I was careless), never a cry to warn those on the
bank."

"Ah, noble sport! But what cleverness and great judgment it requires!"
said the Jackal.

"Not cleverness, child, but only thought. A little thought in life
is like salt upon rice, as the boatmen say, and I have thought deeply
always. The Gavial, my cousin, the fish-eater, has told me how hard it
is for him to follow his fish, and how one fish differs from the other,
and how he must know them all, both together and apart. I say that is
wisdom; but, on the other hand, my cousin, the Gavial, lives among his
people. MY people do not swim in companies, with their mouths out of the
water, as Rewa does; nor do they constantly rise to the surface of the
water, and turn over on their sides, like Mohoo and little Chapta; nor
do they gather in shoals after flood, like Batchua and Chilwa."

"All are very good eating," said the Adjutant, clattering his beak.

"So my cousin says, and makes a great to-do over hunting them, but
they do not climb the banks to escape his sharp nose. MY people are
otherwise. Their life is on the land, in the houses, among the cattle.
I must know what they do, and what they are about to do; and adding the
tail to the trunk, as the saying is, I make up the whole