t you, son of a
wretch."

The other answered, "What have I done, my uncle?"

"You stuck thorns in my flesh. You said to me, 'I will make you some
shoes.' Now what shall I do to you?"

"It was not I," said the jackal.

"It was you, and the proof is that you have your tail cut off."

"But all my cousins are without tails, like me."

"You lie, joker."

"Let me call them and you will see."

"Call them."

At his call the jackals ran up, all without tails.

"Which of you is a shoemaker?" asked the lion.

"All of us," they answered.

He said to them: "I am going to bring you some red pepper. You shall eat of
it, and the one who says, 'Ouch!' that will be the one I'm looking for."

"Go and get it."

He brought them some red pepper, and they were going to eat it when the
first jackal made a noise with his shoes, but he said to the lion, "My
uncle, I did not say, 'Ouch!'" The lion sent them away, and they went about
their business.

* * * * *

THE STOLEN WOMAN

It is related that a man of the Onlad Draabad married his cousin, whom he
loved greatly. He possessed a single slave and some camels. Fearing lest
someone should carry off his wife on account of her beauty, he resolved to
take her to a place where no one should see her. He started, therefore,
with his slave, his camels, and his wife, and proceeded night and day until
he arrived at the shore of the great salt sea, knowing that nobody would
come there.

One day when he had gone out to see his camels and his slave, leaving his
wife alone in the tent, she saw a ship that had just then arrived. It had
been sent by a sultan of a far country, to seek in the islands of the salt
sea a more beautiful wife for him than the women of his land. The woman in
the tent, seeing that the ship would not come first to her, went out first
in front. The people said to her, "Come on board in order to see the whole
ship." She went aboard. Finding her to be just the one for whom they were
seeking, they seized her and took her to their Sultan. On his return, the
husband, not finding his wife, realized that she had been stolen. He
started to find the son of Keij, the Christian. Between them there existed
a friendship. The son of Keij said to him: "Bring a ship and seven men,
whose guide I will be on the sea. They need not go astray nor be
frightened. The city is three or four months' journey from here." They set
sail in a ship to find the cit