what I like, I have
been struck with a hatchet many times. Do you not see the black scars
on my shell?"

Then one of the other monkeys said: "Let us throw him into the water,"

At this the turtle cried and begged them to spare his life, but they
paid no heed to his pleadings and threw him into the water. He sank
to the bottom, but very soon came up with a lobster. The monkeys
were greatly surprised at this and begged him to tell them how to
catch lobsters.

"I tied one end of a string around my waist," said the turtle. "To
the other end of the string I tied a stone so that I would sink."

The monkeys immediately tied strings around themselves as the turtle
said, and when all was ready they plunged into the water never to
come up again.

And to this day monkeys do not like to eat meat, because they remember
the ancient story. [149]

The Poor Fisherman and His Wife

_Ilocano_

Many, many years ago a poor fisherman and his wife lived with their
three sons in a village by the sea. One day the old man set his snare
in the water not far from his house, and at night when he went to look
at it, he found that he had caught a great white fish. This startled
the old man very much, for he had never seen a fish like this before,
and it occurred to him that it was the priest of the town.

He ran to his wife as fast as he could and cried:

"My wife, I have caught the priest."

"What?" said the old woman, terrified at the sight of her frightened
husband.

"I have caught the priest," said the old man again.

They hurried together to the river where the snare was set, and when
the old woman saw the fish, she cried:

"Oh, it is not the priest but the governor."

"No, it is the priest," insisted the old man, and they went home
trembling with fear.

That night neither of them was able to sleep for thought of the
terrible thing that had happened and wondering what they should do. Now
the next day was a great holiday in the town. At four o'clock in the
morning cannons were fired and bells rang loudly. The old man and
woman, hearing all the noise and not knowing the reason for it,
thought that their crime had been discovered, and the people were
searching for them to punish them, so they set out as fast as they
could to hide in the woods. On and on they went, stopping only to
rest so as to enable them to resume their flight.

The next morning they reached the woods near Pilar, where there also
was a great holiday