Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/211

 Rh "Either be a friend to your people, or a friend to your son!" The king said: "Come back to-morrow; I will think it over to-night, and to-morrow I will give you an answer." On the morrow the people came back, and the king answered and said to them: "I will drive away my son, but not my people." Then he said to a maidservant: "When you take my son his food, turn both his shoes upside down and leave them so." So, when the maidservant carried the prince his food she turned his shoes upside down. When he had eaten his food, and got up, he saw that both his shoes were turned upside down, and he said in his heart: "My father has given me my dismissal."

There was a great friendship between the prince and the wazir's son, so, having taken his leave, he went to the wazir's son, and said to him: "My father has turned me out, and, as you are my friend, I am come to take leave of you." The wazir's son said, "I'll go with you," and prepared himself to depart. Then he said: "The kotwal's son is a friend of mine; let us go and say farewell to him." So they went to him, and told him what had happened, and he said: "I'm with you, too." Then he said that he had a friend, a slave's son, to whom he wished to say good-bye; so they went and told the slave's son, and he also came with them. So these four set out, and determined that they would go and seek service in another kingdom. They started off, and at nightfall they halted on the bank of a river. They said to the slave: "Fetch some water, and we will eat something." But when the slave went down to fill a pot with water, a crocodile made a snap at him and carried him off and ate him. Next day the three others went on, and camped at nightfall in a desert place. They told the kotwal to gather some wood to cook their food. He went out to gather wood, when a tiger fell upon him and slew him.

The other two, the prince and the wazir's son, went on to a town, and the wazir said: "King, do you stop here