Page:Swahili tales.djvu/25

Rh brought my heart." The shark asked, "Have you your heart here?"

"Don't you know about us? When we go out we leave our hearts in the trees, and we go about with only our bodies; but you won't believe me, you will tell me I am afraid; let us go on now to your home there, and kill me if you find my heart."

The shark believed it, and said to the monkey, "Let us go back now, and you get your heart." The monkey said, "I don't agree to that, but let us go to your place." And he said, "Let us go back first and take your heart, that we may go on."

The monkey considered—I had better consent to him as far as to the tree, I know what to do when I have got there. They went and returned to the tree, and the monkey climbed up, and said, "Wait for me here, shark, I am going to get my heart, that we may be off."

He climbed into the tree and sat down quite still. The shark called him. He held his tongue. He called him again and said, "Let us be going." The monkey answered him, "Let us go where?" He said, "Let us go to our home." He said, "Are you mad?" The shark said, "How so?" The monkey said to him, "Do you take me for a washerman's donkey?" The shark asked the monkey, "What about a washerman's donkey?" He said, "That's what has neither heart nor ears. "The shark said, "What is the story of the washerman's donkey? Tell me, my friend, that I may know what it means."

And he said, "A washerman had a donkey, and its owner was very fond of it. And the donkey ran away and went into the forest many days, till its owner the washerman forgot it. And it got very fat there in the forest.

And the hare went by and saw the donkey, and foam