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464 "Look here! Why do you run from an imaginary danger? This is your natural food, a man. Eat him."

On hearing this, the fiend took his own form and turned about—but his mind was disturbed and his purpose shaky. And when the thief saw that the monkey had called him back, he was angry. As the monkey sat above, and his tail hung down, the thief took it in his mouth and started to chew very hard. Then the monkey concluded that he was dealing with one more powerful than the fiend, and was too frightened to utter a word. In dreadful pain, he could only shut his eyes tight, clench his teeth, and wait. And the fiend, observing him in this state, recited the stanza:

Then the gold-finder continued: "Bid me farewell, I desire to go home. You may stay here and taste the fruit of the tree of your waywardness."

"Oh," said the wheel-bearer, "that is uncalled for. Good or evil comes by fate's decree to men well-behaved or wayward. As the old verse puts it: