Next Sultaanee Waa Neeoka said to Hasseeboo, “Now, when you go home you will do me injury.”
Hasseeboo was very indignant at the idea, and said, “I could not be induced to do you an injury. Pray, send me home.”
“I will send you home,” said the king; “but I am sure that you will come back and kill me.”
“Why, I dare not be so ungrateful,” exclaimed Hasseeboo. “I swear I could not hurt you.”
“Well,” said the king of the snakes, “bear this in mind: when you go home, do not go to bathe where there are many people.”
And he said, “I will remember.” So the king sent him home, and he went to his mother’s house, and she was overjoyed to find that he was not dead.
Now, the sultan of the town was very sick; and it was decided that the only thing that could cure him would be to kill the king of the snakes, boil him, and give the soup to the sultan.
For a reason known only to himself, the vizir had placed men at the public baths with this instruction: “If any one who comes to bathe here has a mark on his stomach, seize him and bring him to me.”
When Hasseeboo had been home three days he forgot the warning of Sultaanee Waa Neeoka, and went to bathe with the other people. All of a sudden he was seized by some soldiers, and brought before the vizir, who said, “Take us to the home of the king of the snakes.”
“I don’t know where it is,” said Hasseeboo.