Page:Swahili tales.djvu/165

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AN INDIAN TALE.
145

And he said to him: "Go and sell this cap at the sultan's house; it is there where you will get its price." And he went and sold it.

And when the sultan saw it, he knew that the work of that cap was his master's. And he read the verses, too, and knew their meaning, and their meaning was this:

"A Wonder from God,
One was taken by the water,
One was taken by the shark,
I, a free man, am bound,
My slave has got a kingdom,
A Wonder from God."

And he asked the Bedouin, "Where did you get this cap?" And he said, "It was my wife who made it." And he gave him fifty dollars, and said, "Tell your wife to make me another." And the Bedouin went his way.

And he chose out soldiers, and told them, "Follow after him, and when you see the house he goes into, return and come and tell me." And they followed him home. And he went inside. The soldiers returned and told the sultan, and said, "We have seen his house."

And a hundred soldiers were chosen out to go to his house. And he told them, "Seize him and bind him, and bring all the people that are in his house, that you may come with them."

And they went and seized him, and bound him, and came with him, and with all the people that were in his house. And he was asked, "Is this your employment, to seize people and bind them in your house, to kill them, and give them to people to eat?" And he could not deny it. And the people were asked, and they said, "This is what he does." And he was imprisoned in the fort.

And he took his master and ordered some people to give him a bath, and he gave him clothes, and he dressed.