VIII
KITANGATANGA OF THE SEA
THERE was once a man, and he lived at Kilwa. And that man married a wife, and built a hut, in which they stayed. Everything that woman asked for he gave her, only that hut he had built without a door.
He himself, when he went abroad and returned, used to climb up a ladder and get in at the window, and when he went away he took away the ladder. So that woman stayed in that hut and was not able to go out, not even for a little, and so she was sick of heart.
Now when her mother heard about this she came and dug a hole under the wall, so that she was able to come and see her daughter whenever the husband had gone out. The mouth of that hole the woman covered over with matting, so that that man, her husband, did not get to see it.
Now that man was a merchant, and used to trade up and down the coast even as far as Maskat.
One day he came home to his wife and said to her, "My wife, it is time that I went up the coast trading, so in a week's time I will start and will go to Zanzibar and Maskat, and then, after the space of one year, I will return again."
So his wife said to him, "It is well, my husband; may you go and return in safety."
When her husband went away again she got out quickly by her tunnel and came to her mother and said, "My mother, my husband is going to travel away for a year and leave me in my hut. Now you must go quickly and get a fast ship ready for me and tell no one."
Then she returned and sat in the hut, and in the evening her husband returned and climbed in by that window of his.