Once a king while engaged in the chase was separated from his attendants, and seeing what he conceived to be rain-water dropping from the branch of a tree, being very thirsty, he held his drinking-cup under it until it was nearly filled, and as he was about to put it to his lips his horse purposely moved so as to cause the contents to be spilled on the ground, upon which the king in a rage drew his sword and killed the faithful animal. But afterwards discovering that what he had taken for rain­water was poison that dropped from a cobra in the tree, his grief knew no bounds.

Calling his third son, the king asks him what should be done to the man who proved false to his trust, and the prince tells the