them up swiftly, unhurt. They must have passed between tooth and tooth — those small white hands. I should have caught him cross-wise at the elbows; but, as I said, it was only for sport and desire to see new things that I rose at all. They cried out one after another in the boat, and presently I rose again to watch them. The boat was too heavy to push over. They were only women, but he who trusts a woman will walk on duckweed in a pool, as the saying is: and by the Right and Left of Gunga, that is truth!”

“Once a woman gave me some dried skin from a fish,” said the Jackal.

“I had hoped to get her baby, but horse-food is better than the kick of a horse, as the saying is. What did thy woman do?”

“She fired at me