Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/119

Rh forty devils pass him from one to another, smelling of him as though he were some fragrant flower.

Then they ask their mother,—"What has your cousin come for?" and she tells them,—"He has come to get the Water-melon of Immortality to take to his mother who is ill. You must go and bring it to him." Then the forty devils cry,—"Wallah! We can't do that. It is beyond our power." But there was a lame devil among these forty, and this one said to the young man,—"Cousin, take a pitcher, take a comb, take a razor, and you and I will go after it together." Then they go off together. They go until they reach the place where the Water-melon of Immortality grows.

Then the lame devil says,—"Cousin, come here." He goes there, and the devil cuts off a Water-melon from the stalk, and loads it upon the horse, and says,—"Now, you go along, and I will follow directly." The devil sets his sound foot in the path, but, try as he may, he cannot drag his lame foot through the hedge. The other fifty devils awake, and they are upon him in no time. The lame devil cries,—"Cousin, throw down the pitcher." He throws it down, and land and rock turn to water. By the time they cross the water and are almost upon him again, he cries,—"Cousin, throw down the comb!" He throws it down, and it becomes a thicket. By the time they have cut their way through the thicket, and are upon him again, he cries,—"Cousin, throw down the razor!" He throws it down, and it becomes thousands of bits of glass. By the time they were able to pick their way across it, the other forty devils arrive, and extricate the lame one. The young man takes the Water-melon on his horse and starts home with it.

He stops at the konak [large mansion] of the old woman. The old woman asks,—"Have you brought it?" "Yes, wallah, I have," he replies. While the man is asleep that night, the old woman rises, and taking the Water-melon of Immortality puts another in its place. In the morning, the young man takes the Water-melon to his mother. She eats it, and exclaims,—"There; my soul can rest now. I won't die just yet!"