And the youth took the maiden in marriage. As soon as the wedding ceremony was performed, the King’s servants began to prepare this bridegroom’s coffin and his grave also. During the nuptial night, however, the negro hid himself in the wardrobe of the bedchamber. As soon as the bride and the bridegroom were asleep he came out and stood at the head of the bed, holding a dagger and tongs. At midnight there came from the bride’s mouth a viper to bite the bridegroom. The negro at once took hold of the serpent with the tongs, and cutting it in pieces with the dagger, hid it in the wardrobe. In the morning the King’s men came to bury the bridegroom, and lo! he was alive, and they ran back to carry the good tidings to the King, and to felicitate him on the happy event. On the following night there came from the bride’s mouth another viper, which the negro killed, and after that they lived in peace. Now the King of the West also had no son and after his death the lad succeeded him on the throne. One day a messenger came to him from the city of the King of the East, the youth’s fatherland, sent from his mother, saying: “Your father has died; come and reign in his stead.”
The youth, putting a regent in his place, took his second wife, accompanied by the negro, and started for his fatherland. He set sail and on the way stopped at the Island, where he took also his first wife on board. Thence they proceeded and came to the Kingdom of the East, the lad’s fatherland, where he was crowned King. Thus the Kingdoms of the East and the West with the Island between them were united under one crown, and were thereafter governed by the same sovereign.
Soon after the coronation of the King, the Negro asked his master to give him leave to go to his own country.
“My friend and benefactor,” said the King to the negro, “I owe you not only everything I have, but my very life and existence. Come, take whatever you please, and then go your way.”
“Whatever we earned we earned together,” replied the negro; “so I have a right to the half of what belongs to you. However, I will take nothing from your wealth and property, but let us divide your wives between us.”
“Well said!” answered the King, “take whomsoever you like the best.”
“Not so,” said the negro, “lest you should think I had the beautiful one, and I should think that you had her. But we shall divide both ladies into equal parts, half to you and half to me.”
The King at first thought to offer opposition; but remembering the many favors he had received from the negro, he thought it would be ingratitude on his part not to comply with this one strange demand of his colored friend.
“Well, I agree to that,” he said at last. And they took both women under the large sycamore tree on the seashore, where the negro hung the daughter of the King of the West, head down, and lifted his big sword as if to cut her in two by a single stroke. The woman shrieked at the sight of the lifted sword.
“Oh!” exclaimed she with all her might. And lo! a serpent’s nest, with a great number of young vipers, fell from her stomach. The negro killed the vipers, and releasing the woman gave her to her husband, saying: