(An African Folktale)
A mouse and a frog were friends. Every morning the frog would hop out of his pond and go to visit his friend who lived in a hole in the side of a tree. He would return home at noon.
The mouse delighted in his friend’s company. He was unaware that the friend was slowly turning into an enemy. The reason for this was that the frog felt slighted. For he visited the mouse every day, the mouse on his part, had never made an attempt to visit him.
One day he felt he had been humiliated enough. When it was time for him to take leave of the mouse, tail. Then he hopped away dragging the hapless mouse behind him.
The frog dived deep into the pond. The mouse tried to free himself but couldn’t, and soon drowned. His bloated body floated to the top.
A hawk saw the mouse floating on the pond’s surface. He swooped down, and grabbing the mouse in his talons, flew to the branch of a nearby tree. The frog, of course, was hauled out of the water too. He desperately tried to free himself, but couldn’t ad the hawk soon put an end to his struggles.
In Africa, they have a saying: “Don’t dig too deep a pit for your enemy, you may fall into it yourself”.