Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/164

140 through them. Here the merchants had established themselves.

When night fell, the ape and the bear took up their post in a grove near the palace, while the mouse crept within the same, till she came to the apartment where the leader of the caravan slept—here she crept in through the keyhole. The leader of the caravan lay asleep on a soft couch with silken pillows. In a corner of the apartment was a heap of rice, in which was an arrow stuck upright, to which the talisman was bound, but two stout cats were chained to the spot to guard it. This report the mouse brought to the ape and the bear. "If it is as thou hast said," answered the bear, "there is nothing to be done. Let us return to our master." "Not so!" interposed the ape. "There is yet one means to be tried. When it is dark to-night, thou mouse, go again to the caravan leader's apartment, and, having crept in through the keyhole, gnaw at the man's hair. Then the next night, to save his hair, he will have the cats chained to his pillow, when the talisman being unguarded, thou canst go in and fetch it away." Thus he instructed the mouse.

The next night, therefore, the mouse crept in again through the keyhole, and gnawed at the man's hair. When the man got up in the morning, and saw that his hair fell off by handfuls, he said within himself, "A mouse hath done this. To-night, to save what hair remains, the two cats must be chained to my pillow."