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Rh home. On the path lay the snake, and he raised his head when he saw her coming.

"Well," he said, "where are thy companions?"

"Alas! where are they?" she made answer. "They must have been swept out to sea when the river rose in flood."

"No doubt," quoth the snake. "Yet if they had fed me when I asked food of them they would be now not dead but living."

Then the girl took from her basket fish which were large, and wrapped them in a green leaf and gave them to the snake. And he held the little bundle in his mouth, and crept away to his home in the bush.

This then is the tale thou askedst of me, and if it seem folly for that snakes do not now hold converse with men, know that this snake of which I have told thee was "bariawa," and spake even as a man.

Moreover there is the snake of Kawakio, which spake twice, and Dubo, the snake which gave fire to the sons of men, but of them will I tell on another day.

The tales are done.