"And how is he?"
At that Omari put on an air of grief and shook his head and sighed.
"Oh, tell me, what is the matter with my father?" asked the woman.
Omari replied, "He is in great trouble. He has no money or clothes or
food. Oh, his state is very bad!"
When that woman heard these words she wept. Then she asked Omari, "When
do you return to the next world?"
"I return to-morrow. First, I must see my father, who is still alive,
and then I go back."
"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 pass
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.