the sea, and then had stupidly let out the secret of his commission;
how the monkey had deceived him by making him believe that he had left
his liver behind him.

The Dragon King's wrath was great, and he at once gave orders that the
jellyfish was to be severely punished. The punishment was a horrible
one. All the bones were to be drawn out from his living body, and he
was to be beaten with sticks.

The poor jellyfish, humiliated and horrified beyond all words, cried
out for pardon. But the Dragon King's order had to be obeyed.
The servants of the palace forthwith each brought out a stick and
surrounded the jellyfish, and after pulling out his bones they beat
him to a flat pulp, and then took him out beyond the palace gates and
threw him into the water. Here he was left to suffer and repent
his foolish chattering, and to grow accustomed to his new state of
bonelessness.

From this story it is evident that in former times the jellyfish once
had a shell and bones something like a tortoise, but, ever since the
Dragon King's sentence was carried out on the ancestor of the jelly
fishes, his descendants have all been soft and boneless just as you
see them to-day thrown up by the waves high upon the shores of Japan.




THE OLD MAN AND THE DEVILS