Then, O my sister, I ceased not to bid him beware
of the son of Adam and urge him to slay him, till he rose of a
sudden from his stead and went out, lashing his flanks with his
tail. He fared on, and I after him, till we came to a place,
where several roads met, and saw cloud of dust arise, which,
presently clearing away, discovered a naked runaway ass, and now
running and galloping and now rolling in the dust. When the
lion saw the ass, he cried out to him, and he came up to him
submissively. Then said the lion, "Harkye, crack-brain! What is
thy kind and what brings thee hither?" "O, son of the Sultan,"
answered the ass, "I am by kind an ass, and the cause of my
coming hither is that I am fleeing from the son of Adam." "Dost
thou fear then that he will kill thee?" asked the lion-whelp.
"Not so, O son of the Sultan," replied the ass; "but I fear lest
he put a cheat on me; for he hath a thing called the pad, that he
sets on my back, and a thing called the girth, that he binds
about my belly, and a thing called the crupper, that he puts
under my tail, and a thing called the bit, that he places in my
mouth; and he fashions me a goad and goads me with it and makes
me run more than my strength. If I stumble, he curses me, and
if I bray, he reviles me; and when I grow old and can no longer
run, he puts a wooden pannel on me and delivers me to the
water-carriers, who load my back with water from the river, in
skins and other vessels, such as jars, and I wear out my life in
misery and abasement and fatigue till I die, when they cast me on
the rubbish-heaps to the dogs.
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