‘My name is Hassebu, but whence I come I know not, nor whither I go.’
‘Then stay for a little with me,’ said the king, and he bade his soldiers bring water from the spring and fruits from the forest, and to set them before the guest.
For some days Hassebu rested and feasted in the palace of the King of the Snakes, and then he began to long for his mother and his own country. So he said to the King of the Snakes, ‘Send me home, I pray.’
But the King of the Snakes answered, ‘When you go home, you will do me evil!’
‘I will do you no evil,’ replied Hassebu; ‘send me home, I pray.’
But the king said, ‘I know it. If I send you home, you will come back, and kill me. I dare not do it.’ But Hassebu begged so hard that at last the king said, ‘Swear that when you get home you will not go to bathe where many people are gathered.’ And Hassebu swore, and the king ordered his soldiers to take Hassebu in sight of his native city. Then he went straight to his mother’s house, and the heart of his mother was glad.
Now the Sultan of the city was very ill, and all the wise men said that the only thing to cure him was the flesh of the King of the Snakes, and that the only man who could get it was a man with a strange mark on his chest. So the Vizir had set people to watch at the public baths, to see if such a man came there.
For three days Hassebu remembered his promise to the King of the Snakes, and did not go near the baths; then came a morning so hot he could hardly breathe, and he forgot all about it.
The moment he had slipped off his robe he was taken before the Vizir, who said to him, ‘Lead us to the place where the King of the Snakes lives.’
‘I do not know it!’ answered he, but the Vizir did not believe him, and had him bound and beaten till his back was all torn.