After the marketing was over she collected her purchases together and tried to put them into the basket, but the big crocks and carved stools were a sore trouble to her. She could put the flour and hoes and the bananas on top with the mats for a cover very well, but the stools and the crocks were a great difficulty.
Her dog in the meantime had been absent, and had succeeded in killing a young antelope, and had dragged it near her. He looked around and saw that the market was over, and that the people had returned to their own homes, while his mistress had been anxiously planning how to pack her property.
He heard her complain of her folly in buying such cumbersome and weighty things, and ask herself how she was to reach home with them.
Pitying her in her trouble, the dog galloped away and found a man empty-handed, before whom he fawned and whose hands he licked, and being patted he clung to his cloth with his teeth and pulled him gently along—wagging his tail and looking very amiable. He continued to do this until the man, seeing Kitinda fretting over her difficulty, understood what was wanted, and offered to carry the stools and crocks at each end of his long staff over his shoulders for a few of the ripe bananas and a lodging. His assistance was accepted with pleasure, and Kitinda was thus enabled to reach her home, and on the way was told by the man how it was that he had happened to return to the marketplace.
Kitinda was very much tempted there and then to dilate upon her dog’s well-known cleverness, but remembered in time her promise not to boast of him. When, however, she reached the village, and the housewives came out of their houses, burning to hear the news at the market, in her eagerness to tell this one and then the other all that had happened to her, and all that she had seen and heard, she forgot her vow of the morning, and forthwith commenced to relate the last wonderful trick of her dog in dragging a man back to the marketplace to help her when she thought that all her profit in trade would be lost, and when she was just about to smash her nice crocks in her rage.
The dog listened to her narrative, viewed the signs of wonder stealing over the women’s faces, heard them call out to their husbands, saw the men advancing eagerly towards them, saw them all look at him narrowly, heard one man exclaim, “That cannot be a dog! it is a demon within a dog’s hide. He—”
But the dog had heard enough. He turned, and ran into the woods, and was never more seen in that village.
The next market-day came round, and Kitinda took some more palm-oil and a few fowls, and left her home to dispose of them for some other domestic needs. When about half-way, her dog came out of the wood, and after accusing her of betraying him to her stupid countrymen, thus returning evil for good, he sprang upon her and tore her to pieces.