Black Tales for White Children

by C. H. Stigand; Nancy Yulee Stigand

Then she said to him, "Go. May Allah preserve you."

So that youth, when evening fell, took a canoe and paddled over to Manda, and there lay down on the shore.

Now, when the youth had gone, his wife there behind him was sad because she had let him go, and her heart was very heavy with fear for her husband. So she took some embers and some sticks of wood and went down on to Shela beach, and there she kindled a little fire and tended it all night, so that her young man on the opposite side might see it and not be afraid.

In the morning he returned safely to Shela and went to claim his hundred dollars. But the merchant said, "You have not earned them, for you saw the fire that your wife made, and so you were not afraid."

The youth, when he heard those words, was very angry, and went to accuse the merchant before the Sultan.

So the Sultan called that merchant and asked him why he had not paid the youth his hundred dollars.

The merchant said, "Truly, I did not pay him the dollars because he did not earn them, for he had a fire to comfort him the whole night long. Now, Sultan, see if my words are not true and judge between us."

The Sultan then asked the youth, "Did you have a fire?" The youth replied that his wife had made a fire, so the Sultan, who wished to favour the rich merchant, said, "Then you did not earn the money."

As that youth went forth from the presence of the Sultan, he jostled against a sage, who asked him his news; so he told him how he had been defrauded of his hundred dollars.