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."

A general shout of applause greeted this monstrous idea as though it were something delightful; but I bewailed my lot. I was destined to be slaughtered, and not even after death to lie a peaceful corpse, but to serve as the tomb of an unhappy and innocent girl. But before day had fairly come a crowd of soldiers suddenly appeared who had come to attack these villians, and they forthwith clapped them all in irons and carried them off to the governor of the country. And it happened that the girl's fiancé came with them, for it was he that had given information as to the whereabouts of the robbers' headquarters. So he took charge of the girl, set her on my back, and led her thus to her home. When the villagers caught sight of us still at a distance they knew the expedition was successful, for I brayed the good tidings to them, and they ran to meet us, embraced us, and led us in. The young girl had a great deal to say about me, doing justice to her partner in captivity, in flight, and in the danger of that common death. And by my mistress's orders a breakfast was set before me, consisting of a bushel of barley and hay enough for a camel. But it was then most of all that I cursed Palaistra for having changed me into an ass by her art and not into a dog, for I saw the dogs sneaking into the kitchen and gorging themselves with plenty of food, such as is served at the wedding-banquet of a wealthy pair. A few days after the marriage my mistress declared in her father's presence that she was indebted to me, and longed to make me a just return; whereupon he gave orders to turn me out to grass in the pasture with the mares. "For if he is at liberty," said he, "he will enjoy life." And this recompense would have seemed perfectly just if the matter had come before an ass as judge. So he called one of the grooms and handed me over to him, and I was delighted at the prospect of doing no more work. When we arrived at the farm the herdsman put me with the mares, and led the drove of us into the pasture.

But even here it was fated that I should have the same experience as Kandaules; for the man in charge of the mares left me in the possession of his wife, Megapole, for domestic service, and she harnessed me in the mill, and made me grind wheat and barley at her bidding. It is true that it was no great evil to a grateful ass to turn a mill for his own masters, but the worthy woman hired out my wretched neck to the other peasants of the district, who were numerous, taking her pay in flour. And she would also roast the barley allowed me for my breakfast, put it before me for me to grind, make cakes of it, and eat them whole, leaving me to breakfast on the bran. So I grew thin and ugly in a short time, for I had no.comfort in-doors at the mill, nor out-of-doors in the pasture, because my fellow-grazers fought with me.

Moreover, I was often sent up into the mountain to fetch wood on my shoulders, and this was the crown of my sorrows. In the first place, there was a high mountain to be climbed by a terribly straight road, and in the second place, I was barefoot on a steep and stony path. Besides this they sent with me as driver a wretch of a small boy, who found a new way to torture me every time. First he used to flog me even when I was trotting faster than I should, and not with a trimmed stick, but one covered with sharp knots. He always used to strike the same spot on my haunch, so that he opened a wound there with his club, and he always aimed at the sore place. His next idea was to lay a burden on me that would have been too heavy for an elephant. The descent from the mountain was steep, but even there he used to flog me. And if he saw that my load had slipped and was hanging to one side, so that some of the sticks ought to be taken off and added to the lighter side to make it balance, he would by no means proceed in this way. No; he would lift great stones from the mountainside and put them on the side of my fardel that was lighter and slipping up, and I would go on, poor wretch, carrying in addition to the wood an equal weight of useless stones. Moreover, there was a stream that crossed the road and was never dry, and the boy, to save wetting his shoes, used to perch on my back behind the wood, and thus cross the river.

If ever I fell down, worn out with carrying my load, that would be the occasion of unendurable suffering. He who ought to have dismounted and given me the assistance of his hand by raising me from the earth, and, if need were, taking off my load, would neither get down nor lift a finger to help me, but from his seat he would batter me with his stick, beginning at my head and ears, until the blows aroused me. And he played an even more intolerable trick on me than this. He collected a fagot of the sharpest thorns, tied them with a cord, and hung them behind on my tail. As may be imagined, they dangled and fell forward against me as I descended the mountain and pricked my hind-quarters till they were covered with wounds. I was helpless to protect myself, for the source of my pain followed me at each step, hanging from my own body. If I advanced gingerly to avoid the thorns I was halfkilled with the club; if I shunned the club then that horror at my back attacked me sharply. In fact, my driver's one object in life was to kill me.

Once, when I could no longer bear my many cruel sufferings, I let out at him with my heels, and he never forgot that kick. He was ordered one day to carry some tow from one village to another, so he took me, collected a mass of tow, tied it on my back, and made it fast with an additional and painful strap, brewing a fearful plot against me as he adjusted the load. When it was time to start he stole an ember still hot from the hearth, and when we were at some distance from the house he hid it in the tow. The tow immediately burst into flame-for what else would it do?—and my load was nothing but a huge conflagration. I saw that I should be roasted in an instant, and, coming upon a deep mud-hole in the road, I flung myself into the wettest part of it. There I rolled the tow, and twisted and turned myself until I had sprinkled that hot and painful burden with mud. Then I made the rest of the journey with more safety, for the boy could not set me on fire any more because the tow was mixed with mud. And when he arrived he had the impudence to tell this lie about me: that I had plunged into the fireplace of my own accord as I was passing it. Well, that time I survived the tow, though I did not expect to;

but the villain of a boy invented something much worse than this for me. He took me up the mountain and put a great load of wood on me, but this he sold to a neighboring farmer, and drove me home with no load and no wood, and accused me falsely to his master. "I don't see the good, sir," said he, "of supporting this ass, for he is terribly lazy and slow."

When the master heard this he said, "Well, if he is willing neither to walk nor to carry a load, kill him and give his vitals to the dogs, but save his flesh for the work-people, and if any questions are asked as to the manner of his death lay it to the wolf." The rascally boy, my driver, was charmed, and was for killing me at once,

but in the dead of night a messenger came from the village to the farm, saying that the bride, the one who was stolen by the robbers, had been walking with her bridegroom late in the evening on the sea-shore, when suddenly the sea rose, caught them, and carried them out of sight, and that this was the end of their happiness and their agony. This news, that the house was bereft of its young master and mistress, determined the farm-people to live in slavery no longer. They laid their hands on everything in the house and fled. The master of the horses took me, too, collected all the goods he could, and packed them on me and the mares. I was put out at having to carry the load of a real ass, but I was glad to accept this trial in place of the knife. We travelled all night over a painful road, and in three days more we finished our journey and came to Beroia, a large and populous town in Macedonia.

There our drivers determined to settle us and themselves, and we beasts were sold at auction by a loud-voiced crier in the middle of the market-place. The by-standers wished to open our mouths and look at them, and they saw the age of each by his teeth. They bought the others one by one, but I was left last of all, and the auctioneer bade them take me home again. "See," he said, "this fellow only has found no master." But fickle Nemesis who whirls our fortunes constantly about brought a master even to me, such as I should not have prayed for. He was an old rascal of the sort who carry the Syrian goddess around among the villages and farms, and make her beg. This man bought me at the handsome price of six dollars!

When we arrived at Philebos's lodging—for this was my purchaser's name he shouted in a loud voice, just before the door, "Little girls, I have bought you a slave, a handsome, stout Cappadocian." These "little girls" were a crowd of abandoned men, coadjutors of Philebos, and they all applauded in answer to his shout, for they thought he had really made a human purchase.

But when they saw his slave was an ass they jeered Philebos and burst out laughing. The next day they got ready for work, as they expressed it, prepared the goddess, and set her on my back. Then we marched out of the city and tramped about the country. Whenever we came into a village, I, the bearer of the goddess, halted, the crowd of flute players blew a frenzied strain, and the others, tearing off their Oriental head-dresses, bending their heads and twisting their necks, would cut their arms with their swords, and each thrusting his tongue outside his teeth, would cut that, too, so that in a moment they would be covered with fresh blood. When I saw these doings I at first stood trembling lest the goddess might sometime have need of asses' blood, too. But after they had mutilated themselves in this way they collected coppers and small silver coins from the surrounding spectators. Some one might add figs and cheese and a jar of wine, or a bushel of wheat or barley for the ass. By these means the company provided for their own maintenance and the service of the goddess whom I carried.

Towards evening one day we halted at the farm of a rich man. The master was at home, received the goddess in his house with much pleasure, and offered sacrifices to her. I am still mindful of the terrible danger I was in at that house, for the proprietor had received as a present from one of his friends a haunch of wild ass. The cook took possession of it to dress it, but by his carelessness it was lost, for a crowd of dogs contrived to steal in where it was. The man was so terrified at the storm of blows and the torture he would get for the loss of the haunch that he determined to hang himself by the neck. But his wife, who was my heavy curse, said, "Nay, dearest, don't take your own life or give way to such despair. Be guided by me and all will go well. Take these rascals' ass out to a lonely spot, then kill him, cut off this quarter, the haunch, bring it here, dress it and serve it to your master, throwing the rest of the creature down some precipice. They will think he has run away somewhere and got lost. You see how fat he is, and how much better in every way than that wild one." The cook praised the woman's idea. A happy thought, wife," said he. “It is my only way to escape a flogging, and it shall be done immediately." Thus did the wretch who was to be my cook plot with his wife, standing in my presence.

But when I saw what was going to happen, I made a strong resolve to save myself from the knife; so, breaking the halter they led me by, I leaped out and entered at a run the room where the rascals were seated at table with the proprietor of the farm. Running in thither, I pranced about and overturned everything, lamp and tables together. I thought I had invented in this a clever means of safety, and that the proprietor would forthwith order me to be locked up where I could be guarded safely as an unruly ass. But this piece of cleverness brought me into the extremest danger. They thought I was mad, armed themselves with plenty of swords and lances and thick sticks, and got ready to kill me. When I saw what great peril I was in, I ran past them into the room where my masters were to sleep, and, seeing this, they closed the doors carefully from the outside.

As soon as day dawned I received the goddess on my back again, and set out in company with the begging priests, and we came to another village, large and populous, where they announced something even more striking than usual in the way of hocus-pocus-namely, that the goddess would not stay in the house of a man, but would occupy the temple of the most highly honored local goddess they had. The people received the foreign goddess very gladly, and lodged her with their own. To us they assigned lodgings with a poor family. When my masters had made a long stay here they desired to go on to the neighboring city, and asked their goddess back from the villagers. They entered the sacred precincts themselves, brought her away, set her on my back, and drove me off. But, as luck would have it, the profane wretches had used the occasion of entering this temple to steal a votive vessel of gold, which they carried off hidden under the goddess. As soon as the villagers discovered what had happened they gave chase; when they came near they leaped down from their horses, arrested them in the road, accused them of sacrilege and temple-robbing, and demanded the stolen offering. Searching everywhere they found it in the lap of the goddess. So they bound the wretches, led them back, and cast them into prison. The goddess whom I carried they took and placed in another temple, and the golden vessel they restored to the local goddess.

The next day they decided to sell the prisoners' goods and me, and they disposed of me to a stranger from a neighboring village, a baker by trade. He took possession of me, bought ten bushels of wheat, which he placed on my back, and drove me home to his own house over a hard road. When we arrived he led me into the mill, where I beheld a great crowd of beasts, my fellow-slaves, and a great number of mills, all turned by them, and everything was covered with flour. They left me there in idleness that day, seeing that I was a new slave, and had come over a hard road carrying a heavy burden. But on the morrow they covered my eyes with a bandage, harnessed me to the shaft of the mill, and then started me up. Although I knew how to work a mill from much experience, I feigned ignorance; but my hopes were vain, for a number of the millers seized clubs and surrounded me; and when I was not expecting it—for I could not see-they pounded me with one accord, and such was the effect of their blows that I suddenly began to whirl round like a top. And I learned by experiment that it will not do for a slave to wait for the master's hand before he does his work.

Well, I grew very thin and weak in body, till my master decided to sell me, and he disposed of me to a man who was a market-gardener by trade, for he had rented a garden to cultivate. This was our daily work: My master would load me with vegetables early in the morning, and take them to the market. Having disposed of them to the dealers, he would drive me back to the garden. Then he would fall to digging and planting and watering, while I stood idle. Still this life was terribly hard for me. In the first place, when winter came my master could not afford coverings for himself, and still less for me; and I trod barefoot through the slimy mud and over the hard, rough, frozen roads; and the only food for man and beast alike was lettuces, hard and bitter.

One day, when we were setting out for the town, we happened upon a fine-looking man in a soldier's uniform, who began to address us in the Latin tongue, and asked the gardener whither he was driving me, the ass. My master, not understanding the language, I suppose, made no reply. The other grew angry at what he thought an insult, and struck with his whip at the gardener, who thereupon closed with him, twirled him off his legs, and stretched him in the road. As he lay there he pounded him with hands and feet, and a stone from the road. The soldier at first resisted, and threatened that when he got on his feet he would kill the gardener with his sword; but my master, being thus instructed from the very lips of his foe, chose the safer part, drew the sword from him and hurled it to a distance. Then he fell to pounding him again where he lay. The soldier, seeing that his plight was already past bearing, pretended to be killed by the blows. This frightened the gardener, so that he left him lying there just as he was, carried off the sword, and rode away on me to the town.

When we were arrived there he confided the charge of the garden to a partner of his, and, fearing possible danger from the affair in the road, he hid himself and me in the house of one of his friends in the town. The next day they laid their plans and acted as follows: my master they concealed in a chest; me they hung by the feet, and carried me up a ladder to the second story, and shut me up there. The soldier, as we heard afterwards, picked himself up out of the road with difficulty when we were gone, and made his way into the city, stunned with the beating he had had. When he found the soldiers of his company, he told them of the gardener's madness, and they, accompanying him, learned our hiding-place. They brought the magistrates of the city with them, who sent some of their people into the house and bade all within come out. When they appeared, the gardener was nowhere to be seen. The soldiers, however, declared he was in the house with me, his ass, but the people of the house said no other creature was left inside, either man or ass. At this an uproar of vociferation rose in the narrow street, and I, in my headstrong curiosity about everything, longed to know who were shouting, so I peeped down from above through the window. As soon as they saw me they raised an outcry. The people of the house were detected in their lie, and the magistrates, entering and ransacking everything, found my master lying in the chest. Him they arrested and packed off to prison, to give an account of his desperate conduct, and me they brought down and handed over to the soldiers. They all burst into inextinguishable laughter at my having given. information from the upper story and betrayed my own master, and I was the origin, on this occasion, of the proverb about the "peeping ass."

I do not know what happened the next day to my master the gardener, but the soldier determined to sell me, and parted with me for five dollars. The purchaser was a servant to a very rich man of Thessalonika, the largest town in Macedonia. His trade was to cook meats for his master, and he had a brother, a fellow-slave, who understood bread - baking and the flavoring of honey - cakes. These brothers were messmates always, lodged in the same house, held the tools of their trade as common property, and finally installed me, too, in their lodging. After the master's dinner these two used to bring home a quantity of fragments, the one of meats and fish, the other of bread and cakes. They would shut me in with these, leaving me the delightful task of guarding them while they went to bathe. And I, bidding farewell with all my heart to my portion of barley, would devote myself to the skill and earnings of my masters, and so for a long time I revelled in human food. At first, when they returned, they used to take no notice of my carnivorous tendency, because there was such a multitude of dishes, and because I still stole my dinner with fear and discretion. But when at last I perceived their unconsciousness, I used to eat up the choicest morsels and a great deal beside. Then they began to notice their loss, and each at first looked suspiciously at the other, and called him thief, robber of common goods, lost to all sense of honor, and after that they both grew careful, and counted the morsels.