But what was his joy when he saw that the cat had left the door open! "Now, wretch," thought he, "you cannot escape me!" So he walked briskly in at the back door.

He was greatly surprised to find Reynard lying down in the straw, panting as if his heart would break, and rolling his eyes in the pangs of death.
"Ah, friend," said the fox, with a faltering voice, "you are avenged, my hour is come; I am just going to give up the ghost: put your paw upon mine, and say you forgive me." Despite his anger, the generous dog could not set tooth on a dying foe.
"You have served me a shabby trick," said he; "you have left me to starve in a hole, and you have evidently maligned me with my cousin: certainly I meant to be avenged on you; but if you are really dying, that alters the affair." "Oh, oh!" groaned the fox, very bitterly; "I am past help; the poor cat is gone for Doctor Ape, but he'll never come in time.

What a thing it is to have a bad conscience on one's death-bed! But wait till the cat returns, and I'll do you full justice with her before I die." The good-natured dog was much moved at seeing his mortal enemy in such a state, and endeavoured as well as he could to console him.
"Oh, oh!" said the fox; "I am so parched in the throat, I am burning;" and he hung his tongue out of his mouth, and rolled his eyes more fearfully than ever.
"Is there no water here ?" said the dog, looking round.
"Alas, no!--yet stay! yes, now I think of it, there is some in that little hole in the wall; but how to get at it! It is so high that I can't, in my poor weak state, climb up to it; and I dare not ask such a favour of one I have injured so much." "Don't talk of it," said the dog: "but the hole's very small, I could not put my nose through it." "No; but if you just climb up on that stone, and thrust your paw into the hole, you can dip it into the water, and so cool my poor parched mouth.

Oh, what a thing it is to have a bad conscience!" The dog sprang upon the stone, and, getting on his hind legs, thrust his front paw into the hole; when suddenly Reynard pulled a string that he had concealed under the straw, and the dog found his paw caught tight to the wall in a running noose.
"Ah, rascal!" said he, turning round; but the fox leaped up gayly from the straw, and fastening the string with his teeth to a nail in the other end of the wall, walked out, crying, "Good-by, my dear friend; have a care how you believe hereafter in sudden conversions!" So he left the dog on his hind legs to take care of the house.
Reynard found the cat waiting for him where he had appointed, and they walked lovingly together till they came to the cave.

It was now dark, and they saw the basket waiting below; the fox assisted the poor cat into it.