Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/303

Rh the encampment of the merchants, was lurking in the thicket, to exercise his prowess in robbing them. Thus when he overheard how Schalû expounded all that the wolves said, he thought within himself, "This is no ordinary youth. That torrents of rain are about to fall might be a guess, even though the sky presents no indication of a coming storm; but how could he guess that I was prowling about to rob the caravan? this, at least, shows he has command of some sort of supernatural knowledge." Determining therefore to discover some means of possessing himself of the boy, he went away for that night, because the merchants having been warned by the wolves of his designs, they would be on the watch to take him had he attempted an attack.

The merchants, meantime, believing the words of the wolves expounded to them by Schalû, removed their encampment to a high hill, out of the way of chances of damage by inundation. When night had fallen thick around, the rain began to fall in heavy torrents, and the river overflowed its banks, making particular havock of the very spot on which their tent had been pitched. When the merchants in the morning saw this part of the plain all under water, and the floods pouring over it, they said one to another, "Without Schalû's aid we had certainly all been washed away," and out of gratitude they loaded him with rich presents.

At the end of the next day's journey they selected