Then the Bodhisatta sent for his servants and told them where to lodge the five prisoners, saying, "Keep strict watch over them; listen to everything they say, and report it all to me," And his servants did as he bade them. As the prisoners sat together, the Treasurer said to the rustic, "Tell me, you wretch, where you and I ever met before this day; tell me when you gave me that necklace." "Worshipful sir," said the other, "it has never been mine to own aught so valuable even as a stool or bedstead that wasn't rickety. I thought that with your help I should get out of this trouble, and that's why I said what I did. Be not angry with me, my lord." Said the Chaplain [386] in his turn to the Treasurer, "How then came you to pass on to me what this fellow had never given to you?" "I only said so because I thought that if you and I, both high officers of state, stand together, we can soon put the matter right." "Brahmin," now said the Chief Musician to the Chaplain, "when, pray, did you give the jewel to me?" "I only said I did," answered the Chaplain, "because I thought you would help to make the time pass more agreeably." Lastly the courtesan said, "Oh, you wretch of a musician, you know you never visited me, nor I you. So when could you have given me the necklace, as you say?" "Why be angry, my dear?" said the Musician, "we five have got to keep house together for a bit; so let us put a cheerful face on it and be happy together."

This conversation being reported to the Bodhisatta by his agents, he felt convinced the five were all innocent of the robbery, and that a female monkey had taken the necklace. "And I must find a means to make her drop it," said he to himself. So he had a number of bead necklaces made. Next he had a number of monkeys caught and turned loose again, with strings of beads on their necks, wrists and ancles. Meantime, the guilty

monkey kept sitting in the trees watching her treasure. Then the Bodhisatta ordered a number of men to carefully observe every monkey in the grounds, till they saw one wearing the missing pearl necklace, and then frighten her into dropping it.