Part 12 (2/2)
When she had got them she had them brought to the house.
Then she said to that girl, ”Now we must dig a pit here in the other room.”
So they dug a pit and put in it the firewood and then poured the oil over it.
That night they watched till after midnight. When the youth went to the bathroom they got up and seized on the skin and tried to drag it into the pit, but it was too heavy for them. So they exerted all their strength, till at last they managed to drag it into the pit. After that they set fire to the wood and the oil.
When its owner in the bathroom heard the skin crackling he ran in and said to Mizi, ”What have you done, taking away my clothes to put in the fire?” Then he fell down, and did not regain consciousness till three o'clock next day, for that youth did not know the world outside of his skin.
When he recovered Mizi cooked porridge for him, and when he had eaten it he said to Mizi, ”Go to the Sultan and tell him to make offerings, nine sh.e.l.ls full of alms; for the day after to-morrow I will go out.”
So Mizi went with the news to the Sultan, but he replied, ”Go back and get eaten by that snake. We do not want any more of your folly; for you have taken the poor man's daughter and brought her to the snake, and she has already been swallowed up. Now you in your turn will be eaten, and to-day, I suppose, you have come to take leave of us.”
Mizi returned and said to that youth, ”He will not give the offering.”
He replied, ”Then leave him; he who has had no luck does not trust to luck. On Friday I will come forth by the power of Allah, alone.”
When Friday came he decked his horse with pearls and precious stones and rode off to the mosque to pray amongst all the people; but the Sultan did not know that it was his son.
Then Mizi came forth and trilled and shouted for joy, and told every one in the mosque: ”Look at me to-day, for it is to-day that my son, the snake, has come to life.”
Many people thought that Mizi had gone mad. When the Sultan had finished praying he came forth, and Mizi said to him, ”To-day my child has come forth.”
The Sultan said, ”Peace be upon you;” and he followed that youth on his horse and knew that it was his son, and rejoiced greatly.
He said to his slaves, ”Run to the palace, spread out diamonds and cus.h.i.+ons, carpets and mats; do not leave anything of any value, but spread everything out.”
Then was the wedding of that girl, the poor man's daughter, and the snake held with great festivity. So that snake and Mizi lived happily, and he loved her as if she had been his own mother. When he became Sultan he gave the kingdom to her, he gave Mizi what spoke and what did not speak; it became her country, because she had nurtured that snake from its infancy until it became a full-grown man of wisdom.
Now this story comes from the Sultan and his Wazir.
XIV
THE POOR MAN AND HIS WIFE OF WOOD
Once upon a time there was a poor man who used to beg. One day he sat thinking to himself, ”I am a poor man and have no wife. When I go out begging there is no one to come back to in my house or to cook my food for me whilst I am away.”
So he went out to the forest and cut down a tree and carved out of it a woman of wood, and when he had finished he decorated her with jewels and necklaces of wood, and then brought her back to his house.
Then that tree turned into a woman, and he called her Mwanamizi, the child of a root, and he lived with her many days. Till one day, when that poor man had gone forth to beg, a slave girl ran out from the palace of the Sultan in search of a brand with which to light the fire.
She came and knocked at the poor man's door, and when she got no answer she entered and went into the kitchen, and there she saw a lovely woman decked out with pearls and jewels. She went running back to the Sultan and said to him, ”I have just seen the most wondrously beautiful woman in the house of that beggar who lives near us.”
The Sultan then ordered his soldiers, ”Go to fetch the wife of the beggar, that I may see if the words of this slave are true or false.”
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