Page:Folk Tales from Tibet (1906).djvu/159

Rh might have a satisfactory meal. This, however, the Lama always sternly refused to do, and forbade his Servant on any account to destroy the life of a living being.

One day the Servant noticed a fine fat sheep, which, having become separated from the rest of the flock, was wandering about near the Lama's house. So he pursued it and caught it, and carrying it into the ground floor of the house, he went up into the room above, and letting down a rope through a hole in the floor he hitched a slip-knot at the other end of the rope round the sheep's neck. Having made these arrangements he went into the next room, where the Lama, as usual, was sitting alone wrapt in religious contemplation, deaf to all mundane affairs.

"Oh! Lama," said the Servant, addressing the old man, "I have come to tell you that I have just found a sheep belonging to our neighbours, who live in the valley below, wandering about near the house; so, for fear he should be eaten by wolves, I have caught him and tied him up in a room below. But he is a very violent sheep and is struggling desperately to escape. Will you be so kind as to hold the rope for a short time while I go and inform the owner where his sheep is?"

The old Lama, who never refused a reasonable request, at once proceeded to do as he was asked, and, rising from his seat, he followed the Servant into the next room.

"Pray hold this rope," said the Servant, handing the Lama the loose end of the rope to which the sheep