Page:Where Animals Talk (West African folk lore tales).djvu/188

 So, the ship anchored, and a surf-boat was launched into the water to go ashore. When the crew landed, they saw the carcass of the elephant, and a person standing with a spear who warned them, "Do not approach near to me?" But they replied, "We do not want you, nor will we hurt you. But we want these tusks of ivory of this elephant. We want elephants." Wondering at this wish, he cut out the tusks, and gave them to the strangers, adding, "Off in the Forest are very, very many more tusks, more than I can number. You seem to like them; but they are of no use to me." They earnestly said, "But, bring them, bring them! We will buy them of you with abundance of goods." He agreed, and promised, "I am going now; but, let your ship wait, and I will bring all of those things as many as it is possible for me to carry."

So, he went back to his mother; and he and she carried many, many tusks. They filled the ship full; and the crew of the ship sent ashore an immense quantity of goods. When the vessel went away, it left ashore two carpenters, with direction to build a fine house, and have it completed before the vessel should come again.

The man remained there awhile with the carpenters, after the ship had gone.

One day, looking, on a journey down the coast, at a point of land, he was surprised to recognize his father's town, where he and his mother had lived in his childhood. He said to himself, "That's my father's town! I want them to come to me, and live at my town!" He sent word to them; they removed, and all of them came to live with him. And he married one of their young women. (In the meanwhile, he had brought his mother from the forest.)

While he was living at his new home, one day looking seaward, he saw the promised ship coming to get more ivory, and to give more goods. And he went off to the vessel.

Among the women who were still living of his father's people who had known him as a child, was the one who had given him the evil "medicine" long ago; her object in giving it having been to kill him. After he had gone off to the vessel, this woman came to his wife's home, and, seeing the Spear hanging tied from the roof, said, "What is that Thing tied there?" His wife replied, "It is a kind of "medicine"