at they
were to do in this fresh misfortune. As the otter was the only one
who could swim it volunteered to look for the ring, so it plunged
into the water and searched the bottom of the river in vain; then it
guessed that a fish must have swallowed the ring and it set to work
to catch every fish it saw and tore them open; at last in the stomach
of a big fish it found the ring, so it brought the fish to the bank
and while they were all rejoicing and eating a little of the fish a
kite swooped down and carried off the fish, ring and all.

The three animals watched the kite flying away with the fish; but some
women who were gathering firewood ran after the kite and took the fish
from it and putting it in their basket went home. Then the otter and
the rat said to the cat "Now it is your turn: we have both recovered
the ring once, but we cannot go into the house of these humans. They
will let you go near them easily enough; the ring is in the fish's
stomach, you must watch whether they throw away the stomach or clean
it, and find an opportunity for carrying off the ring."

So the cat ran after the women and when they began to cut up the
fish, it kept mewing round them. They threw one or two scraps to it,
but it only sniffed at them and would not eat them; then they began
to wonder what on earth the cat wanted, and at last they threw the
stomach to it. This it seized on gladly and carried it off and tore
it open and found the ring and ran off with it to where the otter
and the rat were waiting. Then the three friends travelled hard for
a day and a night and reached the prison in which Lita was confined.

When Lita got the ring he begged his jailer to get him a _seer_
of milk and when it was brought he dropped the ring in it, and said
"I wish the bed on which my faithless wife and her lover are sleeping
to be brought here with them in it this very night" and before morning
the bed was brought to the prison. Then the magistrate was called and
when he saw that the wife was alive he released Lita, and the lover
who had run away with her had to pay Lita double the expenditure
which had been incurred on his marriage, and was fined beside.

But Lita married another wife and lived happily with her. And some
time afterwards he called the otter and the cat and the rat to him
and said that he purposed to let them go and before they parted he
would give them anything they wished for. They said that he owed them
nothing, and they made