Page:Swahili tales.djvu/451

Rh medicine." And he said, "I do not know how to prepare medicine."

When he reached the road he saw a pail, and a well beside it. He says, "Let me go and drink water there from the well." And he reached the well and looked on all sides of the pail. And he said, "Let me peep into this well of water, that I may get water to drink." And when he peeped into the well he saw a great snake. And it said, "Son of Adam, wait a bit for me." And the snake came out of the well and said, "Son of Adam, where are you going? Do you remember me?" And he said, "I do not know you." And it said, "It was I that you took out of your trap, and I said to you, 'Take me out of rain, and I will take you out of sun.' And you are a stranger where you are going. But bring here your scrip, that I may put in for you things that will be of use to you there where you are going." And he gave it the scrip, and it put in for him chains of gold and chains of silver. And it said, "Take the scrip and spend from it freely."

When he reached the town, that town whither he was going, first of all he met the man who had been taken in the trap. And he took from him the scrip and went with him to his house. And when his wife saw the stranger she cooked porridge, and said, "I am cooking for our guest."

The man whom he had taken out of the trap went to the Sultan in the town, and told the Sultan, "That stranger who has come to my house there, do not think him a son of Adam. He is a snake, and lives in a well; and think him a snake, or if he is not a snake, it is he who turns himself into a snake. So then, Sultan, let a man go and take him and his scrip. I have seen, too, chains of gold and chains of silver."