(_From Zanzibar Tales_)
THERE was once upon a time a man named Haamdaanee, who was very poor.
He had no clothes but rags, and nothing to eat but the food that was
given him in charity.
One day when he was searching about in the dust heap for stray grains
of millet, he found a small piece of money. It seemed a fortune to the
poor man, and he carefully tied it up in one corner of his rags that he
might not lose it.
For a long time he could not decide what to buy with it, but one day
when he was again scratching in the dust heap, a man came by with a
cage full of gazelles which he wished to sell.
"Merchant," called Haamdaanee, "how much do you ask for your gazelles?"
"They are different prices," answered the merchant. "Some are very
large and fine, and for those I ask a good price, but one is a
weakling, and it I would sell for almost nothing."
Some men were passing by and they began to laugh. "Have you come into a
fortune, Haamdaanee," they cried out, "and are you trying to spend it."
Then they said to the merchant, "Do not waste your time on that man.
He is so poor that he has to scratch about in the dust heaps to find
enough to keep him alive."
Haamdaanee untied the corner of his rags and held out the piece of
money. "Here, merchant," he said, "take this and give me one of your
gazelles."
The men were very much surprised to see the money. Then they said, "You
are very foolish, Haamdaanee. You get a piece of money nobody knows
how nor where, and then instead of buying for yourself a good meal you
spend it for a gazelle which will also need food."
Haamdaanee, however, paid no attention to their jeers. He took the
gazelle, and the merchant took his money, glad to have sold an animal
that was so weak and small it seemed as though it would die at any rate.
Haamdaanee carried the little animal home with him to the hovel where
he lived, and made a bed for it in one corner, but there was little he
could give it to eat. If there had not been enough for one there was
still less for two. However, he was not sorry he had bought it. It was
company for him and he loved it as though it were his daughter.
One day when Haamdaanee was preparing to go out to the dust heap, the
gazelle said to him, "Master, why do you not open the door and let me
run out in the forest to find food for myself? If you will do this I
will return to you in the evening, and you will only have had one to
feed instead of two."
Haamdaanee was wonder-struck at hearing the gazelle speaking. "How is
this?" he cried. "You can talk, and yet you are only a little animal I
bought with a piece of money from the dust heap."
"That is true," said the gazelle, "but I am not an ordinary animal. I
am very wise. Let me out every day so that I may run about, and I may
find some way of helping your fortunes. I will always come back to you,
for you bought me and you are my master."
The little gazelle spoke so sweetly that Haamdaanee opened the door as
it wished, and immediately it ran away and into the deep forest, and
was lost to sight. Then Haamdaanee was very sad. He thought, "That was
a foolish thing to do. I will never see my gazelle again, and it was
such a pretty, gentle little thing."
However, when he returned to his hovel that evening he found the little
animal already there. "Master," it said, "I feasted well in the forest
to-day, but I saw and heard nothing that would help your fortunes. But
courage! To-morrow I will go out again, and who knows what may happen."
So the next morning Haamdaanee again opened the door for the gazelle,
and after this he let it out every day, and it remained away until
evening, when it came running home again.
But one day when the gazelle went into the forest the food it liked was
very scarce, and it wandered on further than it had ever gone before.
After a while it began to dig up roots with its sharp little hoofs.
Presently it struck something hard, and when it turned it out from the
earth it proved to be an enormous diamond.
The gazelle was delighted. It rolled the diamond up in leaves and took
it in its mouth to carry it home to Haamdaanee. But then it began to
think. "What could my master do with a diamond like this? No one would
ever believe I had found it in the forest; if he showed it to people
they would certainly think he had stolen it, and he would be beaten or
taken before the judges. No, I must do something better than that with
the stone."
The wise little animal thought for a while, and then with the diamond
still in its mouth, it bounded away through the forest.
It ran on and on for three days and nights without stopping, until it
came to a city where a great king lived. This king had a daughter
who was so beautiful that the fame of her had spread everywhere; even
Haamdaanee and his gazelle had heard of her.
The little animal went straight into the city and through the streets
to the palace, and up the steps and into the room where the king was
sitting with all his councilors about him. There it bent its fore knees
and touched its forehead to the ground three times in token of respect.
"What is this animal, and where does it come from?" asked the king.
No one could tell him anything about it, but the gazelle itself
answered.
"Oh, great king, I am a messenger from my master the Prince Daaraaee,"
it said, "and I have come from far away, a three days and three nights'
journey through the forest."
"And what is the message your master sends?" asked the king.
"He wishes you to give him your beautiful daughter for a wife, and he
sends you a small gift. It is but a poor thing, and scarce worth the
sending, but it was as much as I could carry."
The gazelle then unwrapped the leaves from the diamond and presented
it to the king. All were wonder-struck when they saw the size and
brightness of the diamond. It was worth a kingdom.
"Your master must be very rich and powerful," said the king. "Has he
many more jewels like this?"
"That is nothing to what he has in his treasure house," answered the
gazelle.
"And he wishes the hand of my daughter?"
"Yes, your majesty."
The king was delighted at the idea of having such a rich man for a
son-in-law, and promised that Prince Daaraaee should have the hand of
the princess.
The gazelle then made ready to leave, but first the king fed it with
rice and milk, and hung a golden collar about its neck.
"In ten days' time I will return with my master. Be ready to receive
him and his escort at that time," said the gazelle, and then it bounded
away and was lost to sight in the forest.
Now all this time Haamdaanee had been mourning his gazelle as lost.
Five days had passed without its returning. The sixth day he was
sitting very mournfully on the dust heap when he felt something brush
against him. He looked around, and what was his joy to see his little
gazelle beside him. He stroked and caressed it, and then he saw the
golden collar around its neck.
"What means this golden collar? And where have you been," asked
Haamdaanee.
"I have been far away at the palace of a king," exclaimed the gazelle.
"It was he who gave me this collar, and more than that, he promised
that you should have his beautiful daughter for a wife."
At first Haamdaanee could not believe what the gazelle told him, but
when he had heard the whole story he was filled with terror. "You told
the king I was a great prince," he said, "and when he sees me in my
rags and filth I will be beaten and driven out into the forest to die."
"Do not be afraid, master," answered the gazelle. "Only do as I tell
you and you will be received with great honor, and have a princess as
your wife."
At last he persuaded Haamdaanee to come with him, and they set out
together through the forest. They went on and on until they were within
a day's journey of the king's palace, and then the gazelle stopped.
"Master," said he, "do you now strip off your rags and hide them. Bathe
in the stream, and as you bathe be careful to knock yourself against
the stones so that you will show bruises. Then lie down beside the
stream, and when I return from the city with an escort do nothing but
groan and cry, 'Oh, those robbers! Those cruel and wicked robbers.'"
Haamdaanee stripped off his rags and stepped into the stream, and while
he was still bathing and bruising himself the gazelle bounded away to
the palace of the king. It rushed into the room where the king was and
fell before him, breathless and apparently exhausted. "Oh, my master!
My poor master!" it cried.
The king in great anxiety asked what had happened to the prince.
The gazelle told him that he and his master had come a long way through
the forest in safety, and were within a day's journey of the city when
they had been set upon by robbers. The robbers had stolen everything;
they had stripped the Prince Daaraaee of all his magnificent clothes
and jewels, and had beaten him and left him for dead on the banks of a
stream. The Prince's escort had been carried away captive. "And I alone
escaped," said the gazelle, "for I am so small they did not notice me.
But oh, my poor master! If he is not already dead he must soon perish
unless help is sent to him."
The king immediately commanded that a strong escort should set out to
help the prince. He himself went with them, and a horse was loaded with
magnificent robes for Prince Daaraaee to put on. They started out, and
the gazelle ran along to show them the way.
When they reached the banks of the stream there lay Haamdaanee
groaning, and bruised black and blue as though he had been beaten.
They raised him up and clothed him in the magnificent robes they had
brought, but all he would say was, "Oh, those robbers! Those cruel,
wicked robbers!"
They put him on a great black horse and took him back to the palace of
the king, and when so dressed and mounted he appeared a very handsome
man indeed. The king was delighted with him, and the princess was no
less so, and soon the marriage was celebrated with great feasting and
rejoicing.
For awhile Haamdaanee lived with his wife at the palace of the king,
and he was so happy, and everything was so fine, that he could hardly
believe in his good fortune. But after a time the princess began to ask
her husband when they were to return to his own country. She longed to
see his magnificent palace and all the treasures it contained.
Haamdaanee took the gazelle aside and said to it, "What are we to do
now? I am surely ruined. The princess wishes to see the palace I have
told her of, and I have no place to take her but the wretched hovel
that will not even shelter us from the weather."
"Do not be afraid, master," answered the gazelle. "I will manage
everything for you. Only let me go, and do you tell the princess you
have sent me home to prepare for your reception. I will get a palace
for you, and when I have it I will return and let you know."
Haamdaanee did as the gazelle bade him. The princess was told that the
little animal was to set out immediately and would put all in order at
the palace, so she was willing to wait a while longer before seeing her
husband's treasures.
The gazelle at once started out on its journeyings. It ran on and on
for several days, and then it came to another city even handsomer than
that of the king, but when it entered the streets everything was silent
and deserted. There was not a soul to be seen. The little animal went
through one street after another and at last it came to a palace, and
that too was silent and deserted. It knocked with its hard hoof, and
after a long time the door opened a crack and an old, old woman looked
out. As soon as she saw the gazelle she seemed frightened to death.
"How have you come here?" she cried. "Do you not know that this city
belongs to a terrible snake with three heads, and that he eats every
living thing? He has eaten all the people of the city except myself and
he only left me alive that I might cook his meals and sweep his house.
If he finds you here he will surely kill you."
"I am too tired to go farther," said the gazelle, "and I am so small
that I can easily hide in a corner where the snake will not find me. Do
but let me in to rest for a while. The snake need never know it."
For a time the old woman refused but the gazelle talked so sweetly
that after a time she consented and allowed the little animal to slip
through the crack of the door and into the house.
When it was inside it began to look about it. "This place would just
do for my master if I could but get rid of the snake," it thought.
Presently it saw a bright sword that hung on the wall. "What sword is
that?" it asked of the old woman.
"It belongs to the snake," she answered, "and it is so sharp that it
will cut anything at one stroke."
"That is the sword for me," said the gazelle, and it took it down from
the wall in spite of all the old woman could say.
And now a great rushing noise was heard outside, and the old woman
began to quake and tremble. "That is the snake," she cried, "and when
he finds you here he will surely kill us both."
"Do not be afraid," said the gazelle. "I will tell you what to say and
do, and who knows but what we may rid ourselves of him for good and
all."
Now the snake was at the door and it began to sniff about. "What is
this I smell?" it cried. "Some living thing has entered the city."
"Nonsense," answered the old woman. "A bird flying over the house
dropped a piece of meat down the chimney, and I am cooking it for your
dinner."