Page:Swahili tales.djvu/151

Rh would like to put you in her own eye to keep you; but she dare not, it is not a woman's business. And I was given this milk to bring to you, and this rice, and a cloth to cover you, and this pillow; and whatever you want, tell me, and hide it not from me; and the mistress says to you, that if you wish to go to her father's, she will give you people to take you, to carry you gently, and there you will get plenty of medicine, and be well seen to; you have very much honour there. Give me an answer then, that I may tell my mistress."

Immediately the gazelle died.

When it was dead, throughout the house the people wept, slaves and free people, great and small, women and men.

And Sultan Darai arose and said, "What are you weeping for? What are you weeping for?" And he said, "You are weeping for the gazelle, as if I had died myself. It is only a gazelle that is dead, and its price was an eighth."

His wife said to him, "Master, we looked upon the gazelle as we look upon you. It was the gazelle that came to ask me of my father, it was the gazelle who brought me from my father's, it was the gazelle to whom I was given by my father."

And they said, "We here never saw you, we saw the gazelle, it was he who came and met with trouble here, it was he who came and met with rest here. So, then, when such a one departs from this world, we weep for ourselves, we do not weep for the gazelle."

And they said, "The gazelle did you many benefits, and if there are benefits, they must be like these, and no greater; and if any one says there are greater benefits than these, contradict that man, he is a liar. So then, to us who have done you no good, what will you do? That gazelle who did every good thing, you took no