The Monkey That Would Not Kill

ed the trigger. Now, the next moment that monkey ought to have been scattered all over the hillside in multitudinous fragments. On the contrary, it was up on the table, imitating the click of the gun with a spoon. Not that the shepherd missed. For the first time in its life the rusty lock had 'struck,' and the dazed shepherd was more than ever confirmed in his belief that the monkey was a witch.

'Won't shoot,' he muttered to himself, 'won't hang, won't drown. I have tried the first; I'll prove the next.' So, as he was too superstitious to try to shoot it again, he went out to hang the monkey.

But there was no tree on the island. All day the shepherd searched for a place to hang Tricky, but in vain. That night he lay thinking, hour after hour, where he would hang it, and in the early morning an inspiration came to him--he would try the pump! So he rose softly and fixed the handle of the pump high in the air, so that it stuck out like a gallows, and tied a rope with a noose to the end of it. Then