Page:Swahili tales.djvu/149

Rh things, love him because he is your overlooker in the house. And this gazelle, my master! my husband! my sheikh! Oh, Sultan Darai, I said you had great understanding; is it that you have not even a little? Ten or even one, master, he does not get good from you. Greatness, master, is not a horn, as if a man should grow it; greatness must be waited for, and a great man is like a dust-heap, every one brings his dirt to throw upon it. For a dust-heap does not depend upon one man, it does not depend upon a rich man, nor on a Sultan, it does not depend on a judge, nor on a poor man, neither on a great man, nor on a little one, neither on a man, nor on a woman."

And he said, "You are mad, my wife." And he said, "All your words are like my second garment, which I hang on my shoulder."

"Well, master, the old woman is crying."

The old woman went down till she reached the gazelle and she found it vomiting, and she arose and caught it, and took it on her lap, and the gazelle and the old woman cried very much.

And the mistress arose up-stairs and took secretly milk, and took secretly a little rice, and she took a woman-servant, and said to her. "Take and cook for the gazelle downstairs, and give him." And she said to her, "Take this cloth, too, and give it him to cover himself, and this pillow, and give it him to lie upon; and whatever he wants and whatever he longs for let him send some one to come to me without telling his master, for his master will give him nothing. If he likes now, let me give him people to take him to my father, and they will give him medicine, and he will be well seen to there, and I will send him."

And the woman-servant went down, and told the gazelle, "The mistress sends her compliments; these things are not her doing, they are your master's; she