Black Tales for White Children Part 11

"Will you see my father when you return?"

"Most certainly," said Omari. "Do I not live next door to him?"

"Then," said that woman, "you must take him a present from me."

So she went into an inner room and took out a bag of a thousand dollars, and clothes, and a robe, and turbans, and came and gave them to Omari, and said, "Take these and give them to my father, and say that they are from his daughter, Binti Fatima."

Then she went in and brought out another bag and said, "Take these hundred dollars; they are a present for you, as you are taking these things for my father."

So Omari gathered up the bags of money and the clothes and left that woman, and mounted his donkey and rode away.

He had only just left when the husband of that woman in the house returned home. He noticed that his wife was very joyful, so he asked her, "My wife, why are you so glad to-day?"

She said to him, "A man has just been here who has come from the next world, and he has met my father there in great trouble. So I have given him a thousand dollars and clothes to take to my father. That is why I am so happy; for now the spirit of my father will be very pleased with us, and it will bring us great good fortune."

Now that man saw that his wife had been fooled, but he feared to say so, in case his wife should tell him no more, and he wished to follow that man and get the money back.

So he said to her, "You are not a good wife, for when a man came from the next world to tell you about your father you gave him an offering to take back to him, but you never asked him about my father, or gave him anything to take to him."

Then the wife said, "Oh, forgive me, my husband, but as he has only just left you may overtake him. He was riding a donkey, and he left by that road."

Then she described him. So the husband called for his horse, and the wife ran in and brought out another bag of a thousand dollars, and as he mounted she gave it to him, saying, "Take this, my husband, and give it to him for your father, and if you gallop after him down that road you will surely overtake him."

Now Omari had ridden away on his donkey till he came to a plantation, then he turned his head and saw, in the distance, the dust made by a galloping horse. There was no one on that plantation except one male slave, and so Omari said to him, "Do you see that dust? It is made by a man of great violence. I am going to hide from him, and I advise you to climb up into a coco-nut tree, lest he do you some harm. If he speaks to you do not answer him, for it will only make him more angry."

So that slave scrambled up a coco-nut palm as fast as he could, whilst Omari hid himself and his donkey in a thicket close by.

Presently the husband of the woman galloped up, and saw the slave clambering up to the top of a tall coco-nut tree.

He stopped and called out, "Have you seen a man riding a donkey pa.s.s here?"

The slave did not answer, but continued climbing higher and higher. He asked him again and again, and the slave did not reply, but only made more haste to get well out of reach.

Then was that man very angry, and he got down from his horse and divested himself of all his robes, except only an under-garment, and placing them and the money on the ground, started climbing up after the slave.

Omari watched him from behind the thicket, and, when he had got well up the tree, he came out and seized that man's money and clothes, as well as those he already had, and then mounted his horse and galloped off.

When that man came down from the tree he found all his clothes and his money and his horse gone, and he was very ashamed. So he had to return home wearing only a loin-cloth.

When he came in his wife asked him, "My husband, why do you return naked like that?"

He was ashamed to tell her that he also had been fooled by that man, so he said, "I met the man from the next world, who told me that my father was in a very distressed condition, that he had no clothes, and was dressed in rags. So when I heard that, I took off all my clothes and gave them to that man to take to my father."

Now Omari took all that money, and the clothes, and the horse, and came back to his wife and told her, "I said that I would seek for a fool like unto yourself, and if I did not find one that you would cease to be my wife. Well, now I am content, for I have found two fools, each one more foolish than you."

So they lived together, Omari and his wife, and they spent the money and were happy together.

Here ends the story of the fools, the fool-wife, and the husband and wife who were fooled.

XII

THE HYAENA AND THE MOONBEAM

A hyaena went forth to drink water one day, and he came to a well and stooped down to quench his thirst. Now where he stooped down there was a moonbeam s.h.i.+ning on the water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STRIPED HYAENA]

The hyaena saw that moons.h.i.+ne there in the water and he thought it was a bone. He tried to reach it, but he could not, so he said to himself, "Now if I drink all this water I will get that bone which is at the bottom."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPOTTED HYAENAS]

So he drank and drank, and the water was not finished. So he drank and drank again, till he was so full of water that he died.

XIII

THE SULTAN'S SNAKE-CHILD

Once upon a time there was a Sultan and his Wazir, and those two men were very rich with much wealth, but neither had a son.

They took counsel together, "How will it be when we die? Who shall we leave all this wealth to and we are without children?"

The Sultan said to the Wazir, "We must go to a far country and look for some wise man who will tell us what to do."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Snake]

So they went away, and wandered on and on for three years, till at last they met an old woman, bent with the weight of many years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT LAST THEY MET AN OLD WOMAN, BENT WITH THE WEIGHT OF MANY YEARS.]

That woman said to them, "My grandsons, I know what you have come for."

Then she sank down to the bottom of a big lake, and when she came up again out of the water she brought in her hands two charms, which were two slimy roots; one for the Sultan and one for the Wazir. And she said, "Take these, and when you return home you will find that your wish has already been accomplished; but to these charms I give you there are conditions attached. When you arrive in your town, you must tell no man about it, and take heed that in the way you neither chirrup nor look back."

Then she shook her withered hand and said, "It has taken you three years to come; you will return in one month. Farewell."

Then the Sultan and the Wazir set off home.

In the way the Wazir said, "Allah be praised that our wish has been granted." The Sultan, forgetting the old woman's warning, chirruped, as much as to say, "I will believe when I see."

After one month they came to the gate of their town, and as they entered the cannons sounded and the news spread forth, "There is an heir in the palace of the Sultan, and there is an heir in the house of the Wazir."