Part 31

And when the people heard her they lifted up their voices and spoke:

‘We never saw you, we saw the gazelle. It was the gazelle who met with trouble here, it was the gazelle who met with rest here.

So, then, when such an one departs from this world we weep for ourselves, we do not weep for the gazelle.’

And they said furthermore:

‘The gazelle did you much good, and if anyone says he could have done more for you he is a liar! Therefore, to us who have done you no good, what treatment will you give? The gazelle has died from bitterness of soul, and you ordered your slaves to throw it into the well. Ah! leave us alone that we may weep.’

But Sultan Darai would not heed their words, and the dead gazelle was thrown into the well.

When the mistress heard of it, she sent three slaves, mounted on donkeys, with a letter to her father the sultan, and when the sultan had read the letter he bowed his head and wept, like a man who had lost his mother. And he commanded horses to be saddled, and called the governor and the judges and all the rich men, and said:

‘Come now with me; let us go and bury it.’

Night and day they travelled, till the sultan came to the well where the gazelle had been thrown. And it was a large well, built round a rock, with room for many people; and the sultan entered, and the judges and the rich men followed him. And when he saw the gazelle lying there he wept afresh, and took it in his arms and carried it away.

When the three slaves went and told their mistress what the sultan had done, and how all the people were weeping, she answered:

‘I too have eaten no food, neither have I drunk water, since the day the gazelle died. I have not spoken, and I have not laughed.’

The sultan took the gazelle and buried it, and ordered the people to wear mourning for it, so there was great mourning throughout the city.

Now after the days of mourning were at an end, the wife was sleeping at her husband’s side, and in her sleep she dreamed that she was once more in her father’s house, and when she woke up it was no dream.

And the man dreamed that he was on the dust-heap, scratching. And when he woke, behold! that also was no dream, but the truth.

(Swahili Tales.)

HOW A FISH SWAM IN THE AIR AND A HARE IN THE WATER.

Once upon a time an old man and his wife lived together in a little village. They might have been happy if only the old woman had had the sense to hold her tongue at proper times. But anything which might happen indoors, or any bit of news which her husband might bring in when he had been anywhere, had to be told at once to the whole village, and these tales were repeated and altered till it often happened that much mischief was made, and the old man’s back paid for it.

One day, he drove to the forest. When he reached the edge of it he got out of his cart and walked beside it. Suddenly he stepped on such a soft spot that his foot sank in the earth.

‘What can this be?’ thought he. ‘I’ll dig a bit and see.’

So he dug and dug, and at last he came on a little pot full of gold and silver.

‘Oh, what luck! Now, if only I knew how I could take this treasure home with me----but I can never hope to hide it from my wife, and once she knows of it she’ll tell all the world, and then I shall get into trouble.’

He sat down and thought over the matter a long time, and at last he made a plan. He covered up the pot again with earth and twigs, and drove on into the town, where he bought a live pike and a live hare in the market.

Then he drove back to the forest and hung the pike up at the very top of a tree, and tied up the hare in a fishing net and fastened it on the edge of a little stream, not troubling himself to think how unpleasant such a wet spot was likely to be to the hare.

Then he got into his cart and trotted merrily home.

‘Wife!’ cried he, the moment he got indoors. ‘You can’t think what a piece of good luck has come our way.’

‘What, what, dear husband? Do tell me all about it at once.’

‘No, no, you’ll just go off and tell everyone.’

‘No, indeed! How can you think such things! For shame! If you like I will swear never to----’