So that youth, when evening fell, took a canoe and paddled over to
Manda, and there lay down on the shore.
Now, when the youth had gone, his wife there behind him was sad because
she had let him go, and her heart was very heavy with fear for her
husband. So she took some embers and some sticks of wood and went down
on to Shela beach, and there she kindled a little fire and tended it all
night, so that her young man on the opposite side might see it and not
be afraid.
In the morning he returned safely to Shela and went to claim his hundred
dollars. But the merchant said, "You have not earned them, for you saw
the fire that your wife made, and so you were not afraid."
The youth, when he heard those words, was very angry, and went to
accuse the merchant before the Sultan.
[Illustration: Young man]
So the Sultan called that merchant and asked him why he had not paid the
youth his hundred dollars.
The merchant said, "Truly, I did not pay him the dollars because he did
not earn them, for he had a fire to comfort him the whole night long.
Now, Sultan, see if my words are not true and judge between us."
The Sultan then asked the youth, "Did you have a fire?" The youth
replied that his wife had made a fire, so the Sultan, who wished to
favour the rich merchant, said, "Then you did not earn the money."
As that youth went forth from the presence of the Sultan, he jostled
against a sage, who asked him his news; so he told him how he had been
defrauded of his hundred dollars.
Then said the sage, "If I get your money for you, what will you give
me?" The youth said, "I will give you a third." So they agreed together
after that manner.
The youth then went his way, and the sage came to the Sultan and said to
him, "I invite you to food at noon to-morrow in my plantation." The
Sultan replied, "Thank you, I will come."
Then the sage returned to his house and made ready. He slaughtered an ox
and prepared the meat in pots, but did not cook it. When the Sultan
arrived next day at noon, the sage had the pots of meat placed in one
place apart, and he had fires made in other places, far away from where
he had put the pots. Then, having told his servants what to do, he came
and sat on the verandah with the Sultan, and they conversed with one
another.
After a while he arose and shouted to his servants, "Oh, Bakari and
Sadi, stoke well the fires and turn over the meat."
When twelve o'clock had long passed the Sultan, feeling hungry, asked
the sage, "Is not the food yet ready?"
The sage answered, "The meat is not yet done." So they continued to
converse, till the Sultan became very cross owing to his hunger, and
said, "Surely the food must be ready now." So the sage called out, "Oh,
Bakari, and oh, Sadi, is not the food ready?"
They answered him, "Not yet, master." He then said, "Stoke up the fires
well and turn the meat, that we may soon get our food;" and they
answered him, "We hear and obey, master."
The Sultan then said, "Surely the meat must be cooked _now_, after all
this time." So he arose to look for himself, and behold! he saw the
fires all on one side of the courtyard, with servants busily feeding
them, and the cooking pots all on the other side, also with servants
tending them.
[Illustration: THE FIRE-DRILL]
[Illustration: TWIRLING-STICKS]
[Illustration: THE FIRE.]
He turned to the sage and said, "How is the meat to become cooked, and
the pots are in one place and the fires in another?" The sage replied,
"They will cook like that, my master."
Then was the Sultan very wroth and said, "It is impossible to cook food
like that."
"Indeed no," gravely answered the sage; "for is not the case the same
between those cooking pots and their fires and the youth to whom you
yesterday refused his hundred dollars and his fire, which was on the
opposite shore?"
The Sultan then said, "Your words are true, oh sage! The youth did earn
his hundred dollars. Send and tell the merchant to pay him at once."
[Illustration: Lion]
So the youth got his dollars for sleeping on the island of Manda, and
the sage did not accept from him the fee he had asked for. This is the
story of the lion of Manda.