done its duty well, and he would not throw it away.

"Half the work is done now," he whispered to his faithful wife. "You
have all but saved me now. Take the twine and tie it to the end of
the cotton thread."

Very happily Buddhi-Mati obeyed once more; and soon the cotton thread
and twine were also laid aside, and the strong rope tied to the last
was being quickly dragged up by the clever vizier, who knew that all
fear of death from sunstroke or hunger was over. When he had all the
rope on the tower, he fastened one end of it to the iron railing which
ran round the platform on which he stood, and very quickly slid down
to the bottom, where his wife was waiting for him, trembling with joy.

9. Do you see anything very improbable in the account of what the
beetle did?

10. If the beetle had not gone straight up the tower, what do you
think would have happened?

CHAPTER VI

After embracing his wife and thanking her for saving him, the vizier
said to her: "Before we return home, let us give thanks to the great
God who helped me in my need by putting into my head the device
by which I escaped." The happy pair then prostrated themselves
on the ground, and in fervent words of gratitude expressed their
sense of what the God they worshipped had done for them. "And now,"
said Dhairya-Sila, "the next thing we have to do is to take the dear
little beetle which was the instrument of my rescue back to the place
it came from." And taking off his turban, he showed his wife the tiny
creature lying in the soft folds.

Buddhi-Mati led her husband to the garden where she had found the
beetle, and Dhairya-Sila laid it tenderly on the ground, fetched some
food for it, such as he knew it loved, and there left it to take up
its old way of life. The rest of the day he spent quietly in his own
home with his wife, keeping out of sight of his servants, lest they
should report his return to his master. "You must never breathe a
word to any one of how I escaped," Dhairya-Sila said, and his wife
promised that she never would.

11. When the vizier got this promise, what did he forget which could
betray how he got down from the tower, if any one went to look at it?

12. Do you think there was any need for the vizier to tell his wife
to keep his secret?

CHAPTER VII

All this time the Raja was feeling very unhappy, for he thought he
had himself caused the death of the one man he could trust. He was too
proud to let anybody know