"The sons obeyed, and helped the wolves out of the trap. And
instantly the wolves fell on all six sons, and slew and devoured
them. Then they came and stood round Abdul with their jaws dripping
with blood.

"'Oh, wolves,' said he, trembling with fear and anger, 'ye are
traitors! Ye are forsworn! Ye are faithless ones!'

"But they answered him, 'Oh, Abdul, shall he who knows not false
from true judge treason?' and forthwith they slew him and devoured
him, and went about their business.

"Now, which had the right of that--Abdul or the wolves?"

"We are no wolves!" said Gooja Singh in a whining voice. "We be true
men!"

"Then I will tell you another story," Ranjoor Singh answered him.
And we listened again, as men listen to the ticking of a clock.
"This is a story the same old woman, my mother's aunt, told me when
I was very little.

"There was a man--and this man's name also was Abdul--who owned a
garden, and in it a fish-pond. But in the fish-pond were no fish.
Abdul craved fish to swim hither and thither in his pond, but though
he tried times out of number he could catch none. Yet at fowling he
had better fortune, and when he was weary one day of fishing and
laid his net on land he caught a dozen birds.

"'So-ho!' said Abdul, being a man much given to thought, and he went