Page:Swahili tales.djvu/71

Rh And he said, "I have no grief with you, I should like every day for you to come at all times, come and let me see her, and I, this is my only child, I don't like to miss her often." And he said, "Please God, master."

So when the sun had set, they moved, he and his wife, and went away to his home. And he lived long with that woman, and they were very fond of one another. And that woman loved her husband with a love that had no like. And that man loved his father-in-law so much that there was nothing like it.

And they lived many years without quarrelling, he and his wife, nor did he and his father-in-law quarrel. And these people lived all of one mind till his father-in-law was met with by necessity, and died. And they arose, he and his wife, and buried him.

And they lived while many years passed, and his wife was met with by necessity and died, and he arose and buried her.

Well, he dwelt by himself, and he lived while many days passed, and he did dissipated things, and lost all that he had through much dissipation.

And he lived a beggar man, every house he used to go to, begging and getting. And those days passed, and the houses where he went begging, he was given nothing more. And he went back to the dustheap and scratched like a hen, if he got some grains of mtama he took them and ate them, for the space of many days.

On a certain day going to the dustheap, he went and scratched and got an eighth of a pillar dollar, and he bent down again and scratched in the dustheap without getting one grain of mtama. "Ah! I have got this eighth of a pillar dollar, well I shall go my way and have a sleep." And he went to the house and took water and drank, and took also tobacco and chewed it. This was what he got