When we came to our abiding place they took
the booty from our shoulders and put it carefully
away. Then they fell to and dined, and when
night came they went off to secure the rest of the
things. "Why do we take this wretched ass?"
said one of them. "He is useless with his
wounded hoof. We will carry some of the things
and the horse the rest." So they went off, leading the horse. It was a bright moonlit night.
Then I said to myself: "You poor wretch, why
do you stay here any longer? Vultures and the
children of vultures will dine off you. Don't you
hear what they are plotting against you? Do you
want to be thrown over a precipice? It is night
now and there is a bright moon. The robbers


 



are off on the road. Fly, and save yourself from
these cutthroat masters."
While I was thus thinking to myself I perceived
that I was not even tied to anything, but that the
halter by which they led me on the road was hanging alongside. This added circumstance spurred
me to the greatest eagerness for flight, and I
emerged at a run and was making off; but when
the old woman saw me on the point of escaping
she seized me by the tail and held on. However, I
said to myself that if I were caught by an old woman I should deserve the precipice and any other
death, and I dragged her. But she shrieked with
all her might to the captive maiden to come out.
She ran forward, and when she saw the old woman
hanging on to the ass like a second Dirke she
found courage for a brave deed and worthy of
desperate youth. She sprang onto my back, seated
herself there, and urged me on. I, fired with love
of freedom and the girl, fled with all my might and
ran like a horse, leaving the old woman behind.
The girl prayed to the gods to grant her a safe
escape, and to me she said: "If you bring me to
my father, my pretty ass, I will free you from all
labor, and you shall have a bushel of barley every
day for breakfast." I ran on, quite forgetting my
wound in my eagerness to escape my murderers,
and the hope of getting plenty of assistance and
attention if I should save the maiden.


 

 
But when we came to where the road split into
three the enemy met us on their homeward way.
They recognized their unhappy prisoners in the
moonlight while we were still at a distance, ran
up to us, and laid hold of me, saying: "Oho, my
fine madam, where are you going at this unseasonable hour, you poor, suffering thing? Aren't
you even afraid of ghosts? Come home with us
and we will hand you over to your friends." This
they said with a sardonic laugh, and they turned
me about and dragged me back. Then I remembered my lame foot and fell to limping. "What,"
said they, "are you lame now because you were
caught running away? When your mind was set
on flight you were sound and flew on wings,
swifter than a horse." These words were followed by the stick, and I got a wound on my
thigh at once as a warning.
When we turned into our lodging again we
found the old woman hanging from a stone by a
cord. Apparently she had been so afraid of her
masters when they should discover the girl's
flight that she had hanged herself. They spoke
admiringly of her courage, cut her down, and threw
her over the precipice with the cord round her
neck. The girl they tied up inside the house, and
then they supped and drank heavily. Meanwhile
they began at once to talk with each other about
the girl.



 



"What shall we do with the runaway?" asked
one of them.
"There is nothing to do," said another, "but
throw her down on top of our old woman.
She
has robbed us of as much treasure as she could,
and was on her way to betray our whole establishment. For be assured, my friends, that if she
had reached her kinsmen not one of us would
have been left alive, for our enemies would have
fallen on us with every preparation and captured
us all. So let us take our revenge on the foe,
but not by giving her such an easy death as falling onto the rock. Let us invent for her the
most painful and lingering death, and one that
will only kill her after keeping her a prisoner in
long torment."
Then they set themselves to think out a form
of death, and some one said, “I know you will
applaud my invention. We must kill the ass who
is a nuisance, and, moreover, pretends at present
to be lame, and helped and ministered to the girl's
flight into the bargain. Let us slaughter him,
then, early in the morning, cut open his belly,
take out all his vitals, and place this virtuous
maiden in the ass. We will let her head project
so that she may not be stifled at once, but all the
rest of her body shall be hidden inside. Then
we will stitch her securely in and throw them
both out to the vultures, preparing them a novel


 


breakfast. Note, my friends, the horror of the
torture: in the first place, to live in the dead body
of an ass, then to bake with the beast in the hottest sun of summer, and to die of lingering starvation, unable even to strangle herself. And,
finally, the vultures will make their way in through
the ass, and tear her flesh along with his while she
is yet alive."