en wide and flat.

Again he chased the hare, and when the smart from the stings of the
wasps had subsided a little, he found to his great joy that he was
gaining on his enemy fast. The hare on her part saw that the tiger would
soon catch her and looked around for some means of escape, and spied
just before her a snake half in and half out of its hole.

The hare stopped as before and sat gazing at the snake so intently that
the tiger instead of killing her as he had intended to do, asked her
what it was in the hole.

"This," returned the hare, "is a wonderful flute that only kings and
nobles are allowed to play. Would our lord like to play?"

"Indeed I would," said the tiger; "but where is the lord of this
wonderful flute? Whom shall I ask for permission?"

"If our lord watches right here," said the cunning hare, "his slave will
go to the lord of the flute and ask permission," and the tiger, well
content, sat down to wait.

Again the cunning hare deceived the tiger by pretending to ask
permission, and when a long distance off he called as before: "Our lord
has permission to play the flute. Let him put it in his mouth and blow
with all his might. This is the custom of the lord of the flute."

The foolish tiger immediately took the snake's head into his mouth, but
the sound that followed came from the tiger, not from the flute, and a
terrible yell he gave as the snake bit his mouth! But the hare was far
away and would soon have been safe but for an unlooked for accident that
nearly ended her life.

The people who lived in that part of the hill and water country were at
war with the State that joined them on the north, and thinking that the
soldiers of the enemy would soon invade their country they had made a
trap in the middle of the path over which the hare was running. First
they dug a hole so deep that should anybody fall in, it would be
impossible to climb out again. The sides of the pit were dug on the
slant so that the opening was smaller than the bottom. Over the top they
had placed thin strips of bamboo that would break if any extra weight
came upon them and they had covered the whole with grass and leaves so
that no traveler would know that a trap was there. Into this hole fell
the poor little hare.

Presently the tiger came up to see where the hare had gone, and when he
saw the hole in the middle of the path, he called out, "Where are you,
friend hare?" and the hare from the bottom of the trap called ou