'How, in sooth, should Trust and Honor change the evil nature's root?
Though one watered them with nectar, poison-trees bear deadly fruit.'

I have now at least warned your Majesty: if evil comes, the fault is not
mine,'

'It will not do to condemn the Bull without inquiry,' mused the King;
then he said aloud, 'shall we admonish him, think you, Damanaka?'

'No, no, Sire!' exclaimed the Jackal, eagerly; 'that would spoil all our
precautions--

'Safe within the husk of silence guard the seed of counsel so
That it break not--being broken, then the seedling will not grow,'

What is to be done must be done with despatch. After censuring his
treason, would your Majesty still trust the traitor?--

'Whoso unto ancient fondness takes again a faithless friend,
Like she-mules that die conceiving, in his folly finds his end,'

'But wherein can the Bull injure me?' asked Tawny-hide; 'tell me that!'

'Sire,' replied the Jackal, how can I tell it?--

'Ask who his friends are, ere you scorn your foe;
The Wagtail foiled the sea, that did not so,'

'How could that be?' demanded King Tawny-hide.