Page:Swahili tales.djvu/139

Rh And she said, "I went up-stairs and found the mistress and master sitting on a marble couch, with a mattress of mdarahani cloth, and a large cushion on this side and that, chewing betel leaf, both wife and husband. And the master got up, and asked me, 'What have you come wanting, old woman?' And I told him, 'I am sent by your slave, the gazelle, to come and tell you that it is ill.' His wife started, then stared, and said, 'What ails the gazelle?' And I told her, 'Its whole body aches, it has not a single place without pain.' And the master told me, 'Take that felefele mtama, and make it some gruel and give it.' The mistress said, 'Eh! master, the gazelle is the apple of your eye; you have no child, you make this gazelle like your child; you have no clerk, you make this gazelle like your clerk; you cannot overlook things, you make this gazelle your overlooker. So master, neither ten nor even one, he does not get what is good from you; this gazelle is not one to be done evil to, this is a gazelle in form, but not a gazelle in heart, his heart and his belongings are better than a gentleman's, be he who he may.'

"And he said to her, 'You are a silly chatterer, your words are many. I know its price, I bought it for the price of an eighth, so what loss will it be to me?'

"And she said, 'Master, do not look at what is past, look at what is before your face. This is not a gazelle at the price of an eighth, nor of a hundred thousand. His words and his good manners when his tongue rests from speaking, and his understanding passes twice a hundred thousand.'

'Eh! you have much to say, you woman; can't you shorten it?

The old woman answered the gazelle, "And I was told by the master, that you were to have felefele mtama taken for you, and gruel made for you to drink."