man, your husband will return
directly and put me to death. For the love of heaven, loosen the rope
round my feet before he comes, for one minute only, and let me drink a
little water from that puddle by the door, for my throat is parched
with thirst."

"No, no, friend Jackal," answered the Barber's wife. "I know well
enough what you'll do. No sooner shall I have untied your feet than
you will run away, and when my husband returns and finds you are gone,
he will beat me."

"Indeed, indeed, I will not run away," he replied. "Ah, kind mother,
have pity on me, only for one little moment."

Then the Barber's wife thought, "Well, it is hard not to grant the
poor beast's last request; he will not live long enough to have many
more pleasures." So she untied the Jackal's legs and held him by a
rope, that he might drink from the puddle. But quick as possible, he
gave a jump and a twist and a pull, and, jerking the rope out of her
hand, escaped once more into the jungle.

For some time he roamed up and down, living on what he could get in
this village or that, until he had wandered very far away from the
country where the Barber lived. At last one day, by chance, he passed
a certain cottage, in which there dwelt a very poor Brahmin, who had
seven daughters.

As the Jackal passed by, the Brahmin was saying to himself, "Oh, dear
me! what can I do for my seven daughters? I shall have to support them
all my life, for they are much too poor ever to get married. If a dog
or a jackal were to offer to take one off my hands, he should have
her."

Next day the Jackal called on the Brahmin, and said to him, "You said
yesterday, if a Jackal or a dog were to offer to marry one of your
daughters, you would let him have her; will you, therefore accept me
as a son-in-law?"

The poor Brahmin felt very much embarrassed, but it was certain he had
said the words, and therefore he felt in honour bound not to retract,
although he had little dreamed of ever being placed in such a
predicament. Just at that moment all the seven daughters began crying
for bread, and the father had no bread to give them.

Observing this, the Jackal continued, "Let me marry one of your seven
daughters and I will take care of her. It will at least leave you one
less to provide for, and I will see that she never needs food."

Then the Brahmin's heart was softened, and he gave the Jackal his
eldest daughter in marriage, and the Jackal took her home to his den
in t