‘Now we will journey on to my family, and we will all repay you for the
kindness you showed to me.’
‘You have done more than enough in giving me back my hand,’ replied the
girl; but the snake only smiled.
‘Be quick, lest the sun should set,’ he answered, and began to wriggle
along so fast that the girl could hardly follow him.
By and bye they arrived at the house in a tree where the snake lived,
when he was not travelling with his father and mother. And he told them
all his adventures, and how he had escaped from his enemy. The father
and mother snake could not do enough to show their gratitude. They made
their guest lie down on a hammock woven of the strong creepers
which hung from bough to bough, till she was quite rested after her
wanderings, while they watched the baby and gave him milk to drink from
the cocoa-nuts which they persuaded their friends the monkeys to crack
for them. They even managed to carry small fruit tied up in their tails
for the baby’s mother, who felt at last that she was safe and at peace.
Not that she forgot her husband, for she often thought of him and longed
to show him her son, and in the night she would sometimes lie awake and
wonder where he was.
In this manner many weeks passed by.
And what was the prince doing?
Well, he had fallen very ill when he was on the furthest border of the
kingdom, and he was nursed by some kind people who did not know who he
was, so that the king and queen heard nothing about him. When he was
better he made his way home again, and into his father’s palace, where
he found a strange man standing behind the throne with the peacock’s
feathers. This was his wife’s brother, whom the king had taken into high
favour, though, of course, the prince was quite ignorant of what had
happened.
For a moment the king and queen stared at their son, as if he had been
unknown to them; he had grown so thin and weak during his illness that
his shoulders were bowed like those of an old man.
‘Have you forgotten me so soon?’ he asked.
At the sound of his voice they gave a cry and ran towards him, and
poured out questions as to what had happened, and why he looked like
that. But the prince did not answer any of them.
‘How is my wife?’ he said. There was a pause.
Then the queen replied:
‘She is dead.’
‘Dead!’ he repeated, stepping a little backwards. ‘And my child?’
‘He is dead too.’
The young man stood silent. Then he said, ‘Show me their graves.’
At these words the king, who had been feeling rather uncomfortable, took
heart again, for had he not prepared two beautiful tombs for his son to
see, so that he might never, never guess what had been done to his wife?
All these months the king and queen had been telling each other how good
and merciful they had been not to take her brother’s advice and to put
her to death. But now, this somehow did not seem so certain.
Then the king led the way to the courtyard just behind the palace, and
through the gate into a beautiful garden where stood two splendid
tombs in a green space under the trees. The prince advanced alone, and,
resting his head against the stone, he burst into tears. His father and
mother stood silently behind with a curious pang in their souls which
they did not quite understand. Could it be that they were ashamed of
themselves?
But after a while the prince turned round, and walking past them in to
the palace he bade the slaves bring him mourning. For seven days no
one saw him, but at the end of them he went out hunting, and helped his
father rule his people. Only no one dared to speak to him of his wife
and son.
At last one morning, after the girl had been lying awake all night
thinking of her husband, she said to her friend the snake:
‘You have all shown me much kindness, but now I am well again, and want
to go home and hear some news of my husband, and if he still mourns for
me!’ Now the heart of the snake was sad at her words, but he only said:
‘Yes, thus it must be; go and bid farewell to my father and mother, but
if they offer you a present, see that you take nothing but my father’s
ring and my mother’s casket.’
So she went to the parent snakes, who wept bitterly at the thought of
losing her, and offered her gold and jewels as much as she could carry
in remembrance of them. But the girl shook her head and pushed the
shining heap away from her.
‘I shall never forget you, never,’ she said in a broken voice, ‘but the
only tokens I will accept from you are that little ring and this old
casket.’
The two snakes looked at each other in dismay. The ring and the casket
were the only things they did not want her to have. Then after a short
pause they spoke.
‘Why do you want the ring and casket so much? Who has told you of them?’
‘Oh, nobody; it is just my fancy,’ answered she. But the old snakes
shook their heads and replied:
‘Not so; it is our son who told you, and, as he said, so it must be. If
you need food, or clothes, or a house, tell the ring and it will find
them for you. And if you are unhappy or in danger, tell the casket and
it will set things right.’ Then they both gave her their blessing, and
she picked up her baby and went her way.
She walked for a long time, till at length she came near the town where
her husband and his father dwelt. Here she stopped under a grove of palm
trees, and told the ring that she wanted a house.
‘It is ready, mistress,’ whispered a queer little voice which made
her jump, and, looking behind her, she saw a lovely palace made of the
finest woods, and a row of slaves with tall fans bowing before the door.
Glad indeed was she to enter, for she was very tired, and, after eating
a good supper of fruit and milk which she found in one of the rooms, she
flung herself down on a pile of cushions and went to sleep with her baby
beside her.
Here she stayed quietly, and every day the baby grew taller and
stronger, and very soon he could run about and even talk. Of course the
neighbours had a great deal to say about the house which had been built
so quickly--so very quickly--on the outskirts of the town, and invented
all kinds of stories about the rich lady who lived in it. And by and
bye, when the king returned with his son from the wars, some of these
tales reached his ears.
‘It is really very odd about that house under the palms,’ he said to the
queen; ‘I must find out something of the lady whom no one ever sees. I
daresay it is not a lady at all, but a gang of conspirators who want to
get possession of my throne. To-morrow I shall take my son and my chief
ministers and insist on getting inside.’
Soon after sunrise next day the prince’s wife was standing on a little
hill behind the house, when she saw a cloud of dust coming through the
town. A moment afterwards she heard faintly the roll of the drums that
announced the king’s presence, and saw a crowd of people approaching the
grove of palms. Her heart beat fast. Could her husband be among them?
In any case they must not discover her there; so just bidding the ring
prepare some food for them, she ran inside, and bound a veil of golden
gauze round her head and face. Then, taking the child’s hand, she went
to the door and waited.
In a few minutes the whole procession came up, and she stepped forward
and begged them to come in and rest.
‘Willingly,’ answered the king; ‘go first, and we will follow you.’
They followed her into a long dark room, in which was a table covered
with gold cups and baskets filled with dates and cocoa-nuts and all
kinds of ripe yellow fruits, and the king and the prince sat upon
cushions and were served by slaves, while the ministers, among whom she
recognised her own brother, stood behind.
‘Ah, I owe all my misery to him,’ she said to herself. ‘From the first
he has hated me,’ but outwardly she showed nothing. And when the king
asked her what news there was in the town she only answered:
‘You have ridden far; eat first, and drink, for you must be hungry and
thirsty, and then I will tell you my news.’
‘You speak sense,’ answered the king, and silence prevailed for some
time longer. Then he said:
‘Now, lady, I have finished, and am refreshed, therefore tell me, I pray
you, who you are, and whence you come? But, first, be seated.’
She bowed her head and sat down on a big scarlet cushion, drawing her
little boy, who was asleep in a corner, on to her knee, and began to
tell the story of her life. As her brother listened, he would fain have
left the house and hidden himself in the forest, but it was his duty to
wave the fan of peacock’s feathers over the king’s head to keep off the
flies, and he knew he would be seized by the royal guards if he tried
to desert his post. He must stay where he was, there was no help for
it, and luckily for him the king was too much interested in the tale to
notice that the fan had ceased moving, and that flies were dancing right
on the top of his thick curly hair.
The story went on, but the story-teller never once looked at the prince,
even through her veil, though he on his side never moved his eyes from
her. When she reached the part where she had sat weeping in the tree,
the king’s son could restrain himself no longer.
‘It is my wife,’ he cried, springing to where she sat with the sleeping
child in her lap. ‘They have lied to me, and you are not dead after all,
nor the boy either! But what has happened? Why did they lie to me?
and why did you leave my house where you were safe?’ And he turned and
looked fiercely at his father.
‘Let me finish my tale first, and then you will know,’ answered she,
throwing back her veil, and she told how her brother had come to the
palace and accused her of being a witch, and had tried to persuade the
king to slay her. ‘But he would not do that,’ she continued softly, ‘and
after all, if I had stayed on in your house, I should never have met the
snake, nor have got my hand back again. So let us forget all about it,
and be happy once more, for see! our son is growing quite a big boy.’
‘And what shall be done to your brother?’ asked the king, who was glad
to think that someone had acted in this matter worse than himself.
‘Put him out of the town,’ answered she.
From ‘Swaheli Tales,’ by E. Steere.