Black Tales for White Children Part 10

So Kibaraka came and told the Sultan, and the cannons were fired, and wedding festivities and feastings were held for nine years.

After that Hasani and the fair Jin had a child, a boy like pearls and precious stones.

And Hasani loved his wife exceedingly, and the people of that country saw wonders come to pa.s.s, for the second son was like the stars and the moon.

The house of that Sultan was greatly blessed, and the story ends here.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AFRICAN OKAPI]

XI

THE STORY OF THE FOOLS

Once upon a time there lived a man called Omari and his wife, and they had a very fine fat black ox. So fat was this ox that all the young men in the village wanted to eat it, but Omari would not part with it.

Till one day he went away on a journey; then they thought, "Now we will be able to get that ox and have a feast, for his wife is a great fool."

So twenty men set out and came to the house of that woman, Omari's wife, and they knocked on the door.

"Hodi!"

And she replied, "Come near."

So they went in and told that woman, "We have had a vision, and in that vision we saw that you were going to have a child, a beautiful boy, who will be rich and clever, and will marry the daughter of the Wazir."

Now when the woman heard this she was wondrously pleased, for she had no child.

Then these men said, "There was, in our dream, the sacrifice of a black ox, before this came to pa.s.s."

So she said, "Take my ox and sacrifice him, that the vision may come true."

They replied, "Shall we kill him, though, while your husband is away?"

She said, "Take him, yes, take him, for my husband will be only too pleased when he knows for what purpose the ox has been slain; and he, too, desires a son."

So the youths took away the ox and killed it and feasted and made merry.

After three days the husband returned, and when he did not see his ox in its stall he asked his wife, "Where is the ox?"

She said to him, "It has been slaughtered."

"Why?"

She replied, "Men came who had dreamed a dream that we should have a beautiful male child of great good fortune, and as the sacrifice of a black ox was necessary to bring it true, I gave ours to them."

Omari then said to his wife, "You are a fool. Now I am going out to search for as great a fool as you are. If I cannot find any one who is your equal in folly, I shall leave you; you will cease to be my wife."

So Omari took his donkey and rode away till he came to the house of a certain rich man, and this house had a verandah beneath it. Omari got off his donkey, and as he stood there, a woman, one of the slaves of the household, pa.s.sed in, and said to him, "Master, where do you come from?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: So Amari took his donkey and rode away.]

Omari replied, "I come from the next world."

Then was that slave very astonished, and she went upstairs to her mistress and said to her, "There, below in the verandah, is a man who comes from the next world."

"Is that indeed so?" asked the mistress.

"It is indeed true, and if you doubt me ask him yourself, for he is there below," said the slave.

So the mistress sent her slave down to call Omari up into the house, and she came to him and said, "The mistress asks you to come upstairs."

Omari replied, "I cannot come upstairs; I am afraid, because it is a stranger's house."

When the slave brought these words to her mistress, she herself came down and called to Omari, "Do not be afraid; come upstairs; there is no danger."

So Omari went upstairs, and that woman asked him, "Master, where do you come from?"

Omari replied, "I come from the next world."

"See," said the slave; "were not my words true?"

Then was that mistress very amazed, and she asked him, "Why have you left the next world?"

"I have come to see my father," answered Omari.

"My father, who is dead," said the woman; "have you met him there in the next world?"

"What is he called, and what is he like?" said Omari.

"He is called so-and-so, son of so-and-so," said the woman, and she described to him his appearance.

Omari replied, "I have seen him."

"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."