Page:Swahili tales.djvu/93

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SULTAN DARAI.
73

that you have a daughter, so he has sent you this; and do you forgive him, do you bear with him, that he has sent you something not worthy of you, because it is but a small thing."

The Sultan said, "Allahu, I am quite content; I am quite content; even my grave when I die is content with what Sultan Darai has done toward me." And he said, "Many thanks, thanks; I am quite content; the wife is his wife, the family is his family, the slave, is his slave. Let him come at any time whatsoever. I will marry Sultan Darai to my daughter. I don't want a pishi of him; I don't want a kisaga of him; I don't want a kibaba of him; I don't want half a kibaba of him; I don't want a quarter of a kibaba of him; but let him come empty-handed. Whatever there is more, let him leave it there where it is. This then is my message, and do you make it clear to Sultan Darai."

So the gazelle got up and said, "Master, good-bye, and be content with me your slave." And he said, "I have already received contentment from you. I wish you to be content with me, you gazelle, in what I have answered you." And it said, "Content, master, even with another answer; and, master, I am content; and I, master, am going away to our town. We shall not stay many days; perhaps in eight days, or in eleven days, we shall arrive as your guests." And he said, "Ah! good-bye."

And as for the gazelle's master in the town there, people groaned at him, and people laughed at him, and some people grunted at him, and some other people said of him, "This poor man is madder now; he had his eighth of a dollar, and he went and bought a gazelle, and he let his gazelle go, and now he wanders about the town crying, "Oh! my poor gazelle! my poor gazelle." And people laughed at him, and he had lost his wits because of the gazelle.