Black Tales for White Children

by C. H. Stigand; Nancy Yulee Stigand

And his mother, looking out from the upper storey, sang, "My child, that is not Nunda who kills people."

When he came into the house she said, "My son, that is not Nunda; it is a rhino."

So he said, "I will sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I will set out again."

In the morning he took seven bows and one thousand arrows and set out, and travelled and travelled, through forests and plains, till he came to a garden, and there he sat down.

Presently a great dust arose in the hills and came down into the plains.

So Mohammed climbed a tree and waited, saying, "This indeed must be Nunda."

Presently a great animal came out of the dust and came down to the garden to drink, and he drank from three o'clock in the afternoon to six o'clock in the evening.

And Mohammed, up in the tree, said to himself, "If I am to die I am already dead, and if I am to escape I have already escaped;" so he started shooting his arrows, and when he had shot five hundred the animal looked up from drinking, but he did not yet know that he was hit.

So Mohammed took his other five hundred arrows and shot and shot till he had used them all, and then he threw away his bow.

Then the animal arose and went to the tree where Mohammed sat, and jumped and bounded in his pain, but he did not reach him, and in the morning when Mohammed looked down he saw that the animal was dead. Then he descended and cut off a leg, and taking it started for home.