Then Mohammed with the Magic Finger picked up a stick and struck the old woman with it, saying, ‘Get down, and look after the sheep; I want to go to sleep.’
‘Oh, certainly!’ replied she.
So Mohammed lay down comfortably under a tree and slept till evening. Towards sunset he woke up and said to the old woman: ‘Where are the singing birds which you have got to catch?’
‘You never told me anything about that,’ replied she.
‘Oh, didn’t I?’ he answered. ‘Well, it is part of your business, and if you don’t do it, I shall just kill you.’
‘Of course I will catch them!’ cried she in a hurry, and ran about the bushes after the birds, till thorns pierced her foot, and she shrieked from pain and exclaimed, ‘Oh dear, how unlucky I am! and how abominably this man is treating me!’ However, at last she managed to catch the seven birds, and brought them to Mohammed, saying, ‘Here they are!’
‘Then now we will go back to the house,’ said he.
When they had gone some way he turned to her sharply:
‘Be quick and drive the sheep home, for I do not know where their fold is.’ And she drove them before her. By-and-by the young man spoke:
‘Look here, old hag; if you say anything to your son about my having struck you, or about my not being the old shepherd, I’ll kill you!’