they made ready everything wanted for the
sacrifice and went to the jungle with the bullock that was to be
the victim. There at the foot of a _sal_ tree they scraped a piece
of ground bare and smeared it with cow dung; then they put little
heaps of rice at the four corners of a square and marked the place
with vermilion; then they sprinkled water over the bullock and led
it up to the square.

But here their difficulties began for none of them knew what
incantations the men said on such an occasion; they wasted a lot of
time each urging the other to begin, at last the wife of the headman
plucked up courage and started an invocation like this: "We sacrifice
this bullock to you; grant that our husbands may return; let not the
Raja sacrifice them but grant them a speedy return." Having got as
far as this she wanted the other women to take a turn, but they said
that her invocation was capital and quite sufficient; and they had
better get on to the sacrifice at once. Easier said than done; they
none of them knew how to do it; as they all hung back the headman's
wife scolded them roundly and bade them take the axe and kill the
beast; then they all asked where they were to strike the animal:
"Where its life resides," said the headman's wife. "Where is that,"
asked the women. "Watch and see what part of it moves," answered she,
"and strike there." So they looked and presently the bullock moved
its tail: "That's where its life is," shouted they; so three or
four of them caught hold of the rope round the animal's neck and
one woman seized the axe and struck two blows at the root of the
animal's tail. She did it no harm but the pain of the blow made
the bullock pass water. "See the blood flowing," cried the women,
and eagerly caught the stream in a vessel; then the sacrificer dealt
another blow which made the bullock jump and struggle until it broke
loose and galloped off. The women followed in pursuit and chased it
through a field of cotton; the bullock knocked off many of the ripe
cotton pods and these the women thought were lumps of fat fallen from
the wounded bullock, so they took them home and ate them; such fools
were the women in those days.

CXXXVII. The Thief's Son.

Once upon a time a goat strayed into the house of a certain man who
promptly killed it and hid the body. At evening the owner of the
goat missed it and came in search of it. He asked the man who had
killed it whether he had seen it, but the latter p