The horse they fastened securely to a tree. Then going to a spot a short distance away, they lay down to sleep.
Hamidu lay still and helpless, watching the bright stars as they blinked and twinkled overhead. He tried to loose the bonds that held his hands, but they were too strong for him.
“Alas,” he thought, “not only shall I lose my beloved horse but also my life, I fear.”
He could hear the heavy breathing of the sleeping soldiers. Everything else was quiet.
Suddenly, his ear caught the sound of gentle footsteps.
“I could almost believe it to be my beloved Beauty,” he thought, “if that were not impossible.”
But it was Beauty, whose soft nose came feeling over Hamidu! and it was Beauty’s teeth which grasped his girdle and lifted him from the ground.
Swift as a deer, the horse bore Hamidu on and on back to his home.
There a friend loosed his bonds and gave him and the horse food and drink.
Then Hamidu mounted Beauty and rode away, away, away into the distant hills of another country. And never did the ruler’s men find either Hamidu or the horse that gnawed loose his own fetters and saved his master’s life.