and the leopard asked whether
he did not recognise him; the _raibar_ stoutly denied all knowledge
of him. "Well," said the leopard "I am the leopard of whom you made
two out of one, and to show my gratitude I will give you any reward
you like; would you like a cow or a deer or any other animal? I will
kill you one and bring it to you."

When the _raibar_ saw the turn that things had taken he thought that
he had better take advantage of it, so he asked for a good large
nilgai. The leopard told him to come to a certain tree at noon the
next day and he would find the animal there. So they separated and the
next day at noon the _raibar_ went to the tree and found a fine nilgai
waiting for him, which he and his friends took home and ate with joy.

XLIV. The Ungrateful Snake.

There was once a Raja and his dewan and they each had one son;
these sons were married in infancy but as they grew up they never
heard anything about their having been married. When the boys reached
manhood and found no arrangements being made for their weddings they
began to wonder at the delay and often talked about it, and in the end
they agreed to run away to another country. Soon after this resolve
of theirs some horse dealers came to their home with horses to sell;
the two youths at once saw that if they could each have a horse and
learn to ride it, it would be easy for them to run away from home. So
they hurried to their fathers and begged them to buy them each one of
the beautiful horses which the dealers had brought. The Raja and the
dewan did not like to disappoint their sons so they bought the horses,
to the great delight of the boys, who used to ride them every day.

One day the Raja's son was out riding by himself and he passed by
a tank where a number of women and girls were bathing and drawing
water; as he came galloping along the women ran back in a fright;
and as they could not draw their water while he was there, an old
woman came up to him and told him to go away and not stay making eyes
at the girls as if he had no wife of his own: "What wife have I?",
said the prince, "I know nothing of having been married." "You were
married sure enough when you were an infant," replied the old woman:
"your wife is still in her father's house, but now that you have
grown up they will probably bring her home to you this year."

Then the prince asked where his wife lived and having learnt the name
of the village he galloped off home and at