Part 3

“They are no more your fish than mine,” replied the hyena. “Your fish, indeed! Why they have fallen out of the wagon.”

Kanja was too much annoyed to speak, so he went on gathering up the fish, and thinking of a way to punish her.

“There is another wagon coming,” he said at last. “Lie down in the road, and you will get as many fish as I did.”

The hyena opened her eyes. “Really?” she asked.

“Really. But you must keep perfectly still. Pretend to be dead.”

The fur of a hyena is not soft and silky like that of a jackal, so when the driver saw her stretched out in front of the wagon, he kicked her out of the way.

“Great, ugly thing!” he said. “What is it doing here?” Then he looked around for a stick to beat her with, and as she moved a little he cried out, “Oh, she’s not dead at all. Get up, you stupid, and be off!”

After the wagon had gone on, the hyena limped away to tell Kanja what had happened, “There was no fish,” she said, “and I am beaten to a jelly.”

“You have probably made some mistake,” said the jackal politely. “Are you sure you laid perfectly still?” he asked, “and right in the middle of the track?”

“I lay perfectly still in the middle of the track,” replied the hyena.

“Then it must be that the driver didn’t think you handsome enough to make a cloak. That’s it, dear friend. Your want of beauty is your misfortune and not your fault,” said Kanja in a sympathetic tone.

“It certainly is a great misfortune to be plain,” sighed the hyena, with tears in her eyes.

“But it is a still greater one to be stupid!” added Kanja, as he ran off with another fish in his mouth.

“I wonder what he meant?” said the hyena to herself.