A jackal named Gomaya had wandered for days without finding a scrap to eat. His stomach growled, his legs trembled, and his nose led him at last to a wide, deserted field where two armies had once fought a great battle. The soldiers were long gone, leaving behind broken carts, torn banners — and, under a tree, a huge war drum abandoned in the grass.
As Gomaya crept across the field, the wind rose, and the branches of the tree began swaying and knocking against the drum's tight leather face. BOOM! BOOM! The tremendous sound rolled across the empty field like thunder. The starving jackal leapt into the air in terror. “What monster is this?” he whimpered, flattening himself in the grass. “A beast with a voice like that must be enormous! I should flee this place at once.”
But as he lay trembling, wiser thoughts came to him. “Wait,” he told himself. “Fear runs faster than truth. My elders always said that one should not give up ground in panic without first finding out what the noise really is. It may be a danger — or it may be my good fortune wearing a frightening mask.” Gathering all his courage, he crept forward, one soft step at a time, toward the thunderous voice.
And what did he find? Only a big drum, booming whenever the windblown branches brushed against it! Gomaya walked all around it, sniffed it, tapped it with his paw — boom! — and burst out laughing at his own fright. He tore open the leather top, wondering if some feast lay inside, but found the great roaring creature completely hollow, mere skin stretched over wood. Chuckling, the jackal searched the abandoned camp around it, and there he found food and water left behind by the soldiers, enough to feast on for days. As he ate, he thought contentedly: how good it is that I chose courage over panic — the loudest voices are often the emptiest ones.