clear of the hunger, for if that gets near enough it will
make a hare of you. Sure, listen to reason now like a
good man. What is Nature at all but a word that
learned men have made to talk about. There's clay and
gods and men, and they are good friends enough."

The sun had long since gone down, and the grey eve-
ning was bowing over the land, hiding the mountain
peaks, and putting a shadow round the scattered bushes
and the wide clumps of heather.

"I know a place up here where we can stop for the
night," said she, "and there's a little shebeen round the
bend of the road where we can get anything we want."

At the word "whoh" the ass stopped and one of the
men took the harness off him. When he was unyoked the
man gave him two kicks: "Be off with you, you devil,
and see if you can get anything to eat," he roared. The
ass trotted a few paces off and searched about until he
found some grass. He ate this, and when he had eaten
as much as he wanted he returned and lay down under a
wall. He lay for a long time looking in the one direc-
tion, and at last he put his head down and went to sleep.
While he was sleeping he kept one ear up and the other
ear down for about twenty minutes, and then he put the
first ear down and the other one up, and he kept on do-
ing this all the night. If he had anything to lose you
wouldn't mind him setting up sentries, but he hadn't a
thing in the world except his skin and his bones, and no