hung them in Gudu's
fur. After that he went back to the wood-pile and slept again.

In the morning the mother of Gudu's betrothed came out to milk
her goats, and on going to the bushes where the largest one seemed
entangled, she found out the trick. She made such lament that the people
of the village came running, and Gudu and Isuro jumped up also, and
pretended to be as surprised and interested as the rest. But they must
have looked guilty after all, for suddenly an old man pointed to them,
and cried:

'Those are thieves.' And at the sound of his voice the big Gudu trembled
all over.

'How dare you say such things? I defy you to prove it,' answered Isuro
boldly. And he danced forward, and turned head over heels, and shook
himself before them all.

'I spoke hastily; you are innocent,' said the old man; 'but now let
the baboon do likewise.' And when Gudu began to jump the goat's bones
rattled and the people cried: 'It is Gudu who is the goat-slayer!' But
Gudu answered:

'Nay, I did not kill your goat; it was Isuro, and he ate the meat,
and hung the bones round my neck. So it is he who should die!' And
the people looked at each other, for they knew not what to believe. At
length one man said:

'Let them both die, but they may choose their own deaths.'

Then Isuro answered:

'If we must die, put us in the place where the wood is cut, and heap it
up all round us, so that we cannot escape, and set fire to the wood;
and if one is burned and the other is not, then he that is burned is the
goat-slayer.'

And the people did as Isuro had said. But Isuro knew of a hole under the
wood-pile, and when the fire was kindled he ran into the hole, but Gudu
died there.

When the fire had burned itself out and only ashes were left where the
wood had been, Isuro came out of his hole, and said to the people:

'Lo! did I not speak well? He who killed your goat is among those
ashes.'

Ian, the Soldier's Son

[Mashona Story.]

There dwelt a knight in Grianaig of the land of the West, who had three
daughters, and for goodness and beauty they had not their like in all
the isles. All the people loved them, and loud was the weeping when
one day, as the three maidens sat on the rocks on the edge of the sea,
dipping their feet in the water, there arose a great beast from under
the waves and swept them away beneath the ocean. And none knew whither
they had gone, or how to seek them.

Now there lived in a town a few miles