After that, the Tambi having come, unfastened him. After he unfastened
him, Loku-Appuhami having caught him, and placed him at the tree,
and tied him, went away, driving the drove of pack-bulls.
After he went, those men having come, when they looked he was the
Tambi. Then those men say, "Ade! Loku-Appuhami took the appearance
of a Moorman!" Having spoken together, and seized that Moorman,
they put him into the river and went away.
Then Loku-Appuhami, taking that Moorman's drove of pack-bulls, goes
through the midst of those men's houses. When [he was] going, a woman
said to the men, "Look there! Loku Appuhami who went to be thrown
into the river,--On! he is bringing a drove of pack-bulls!" she said.
Then a man, being in the house, said, "Strumpet, don't thou tell
lies." Scolding her in this manner, the man also came out and looked;
when he looked, in very truth (haebaewatama) he is coming! After that,
he asked, "Loku-Appuhami, whence (kohendae) are you bringing that
drove of pack-bulls and the goods?"
Then Loku-Appuhami said, "Having gone to the bottom of the water
in the river, when I looked these were [there]. After that, having
looked out a good one from them (i.e., a good drove of bulls),
[after] selecting it I came away," he said.
Having heard that word, the party, as many as stayed at home, said,
"We also having gone there, put us into the river to bring an excellent
[87] bit of pack-bull drove."
Having said, "It is good," calling the party, Loku-Appuhami put a
person into the water. Then, having gone into the water, when dying
he made a sound, "Boka, Boka," [88] and dust came to the surface.
Then the party who stayed on the bank asked, "What, Loku-Appuhami,
is that?"
Loku-Appuhami says, "That is [because] he is finding excellent droves
of pack-bulls."
Then the other persons, also, who were on the bank, said, "If so,
put us in also, to select good droves of pack-bulls and come."
After that, he put that party in also. In that very way the whole of
the persons went and died in the river.
Loku-Appuhami having returned, taking all the goods that were in
those persons' houses, went to those persons' houses. Having gone,
he became rich to a good degree (honda haetiyata).
North-western Province.
This story is another version of the tales numbered 9 and 12 in vol. i,
at the end of which the outlines of some variants are given.
There is also a Khassonka story of West Africa extremely like
the later incidents of No. 10, in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil),
p. 67. When his mother continually interrupted a young thief who was
being questioned by a King, the son stabbed her with his dagger, in
reality merely piercing a bottle of ox's blood which was concealed
under her cloth. She fell down, the blood poured out, and she seemed
to be dead. The son then, uttering spells, three times sprinkled the
deceased's face with a cow's tail dipped in water. She recovered, and
the son sold the cow's tail to the King for two thousand slaves. When
the King cut the throat of his favourite wife and failed to restore
her to life, he ordered the thief to be thrown into the river sewn
up in an ox-hide. While the slaves who carried him left their bundle
on the roadside, the thief, hearing the voices of a pious Muhammadan
priest and his pupils and servants, began to cry out that he preferred
a life on earth to one in Paradise. The priest opened the skin,
and learning that the youth was being forcibly taken to Paradise,
gladly exchanged places with him, and was drowned. The thief then
took some gold that he found in the priest's house, and reported to
the King that the King's father had sent him with it for the King,
adding that there was much more to be got in Paradise. The King gave
him half the gold, and got himself and his relatives sewn up in hides
and thrown into the deepest part of the river. As they did not return
the people made the thief King.