‘You have been away a long while,’ said the herdsman. ‘Where are the cattle?’
The young man gasped, and seemed as if he was unable to speak. At last he answered:
‘It is always the same story! The oxen are—gone—gone!’
‘G-g-gone?’ cried the herdsman. ‘Scoundrel, you lie!’
‘I am telling you the exact truth,’ answered the young man. ‘Directly we came to the meadow they grew so wild that I could not keep them together. Then the big ox broke away, and the others followed till they all disappeared down a deep hole into the earth. It seemed to me that I heard sounds of bellowing, and I thought I recognised the voice of the golden horned ox; but when I got to the place from which the sounds had come, I could neither see nor hear anything in the hole itself, though there were traces of a fire all round it.’
‘Wretch!’ cried the herdsman, when he had heard this story, ‘even if you did not lie before, you are lying now.’
‘No, master, I am speaking the truth. Come and see for yourself.’
‘If I find you have deceived me, you are a dead man, said the herdsman; and they went out together.
‘What do you call that?’ asked the youth. And the herdsman looked and saw the traces of a fire, which seemed to have sprung up from under the earth.
‘Wonder upon wonder,’ he exclaimed, ‘so you really did speak the truth after all! Well, I cannot reproach you, though I shall have to pay heavily to my royal master for the value of that ox. But come, let us go home! I will never set you to herd cattle again, henceforward I will give you something easier to do.’
‘I have thought of exactly the thing for you,’ said the herdsman as they walked along, ‘and it is so simple that
