HAAMDAANEE AND THE WISE GAZELLE (From Zanzibar Tales)

THERE was once upon a time a man named Haamdaanee, who was very poor. He had no clothes but rags, and nothing to eat but the food that was given him in charity.

One day when he was searching about in the dust heap for stray grains of millet, he found a small piece of money. It seemed a fortune to the poor man, and he carefully tied it up in one corner of his rags that he might not lose it.

For a long time he could not decide what to buy with it, but one day when he was again scratching in the dust heap, a man came by with a cage full of gazelles which he wished to sell.

“Merchant,” called Haamdaanee, “how much do you ask for your gazelles?”

“They are different prices,” answered the merchant. “Some are very large and fine, and for those I ask a good price, but one is a weakling, and it I would sell for almost nothing.”

Some men were passing by and they began to laugh. “Have you come into a fortune, Haamdaanee,” they cried out, “and are you trying to spend it.” Then they said to the merchant, “Do not waste your time on that man. He is so poor that he has to scratch about in the dust heaps to find enough to keep him alive.”

Haamdaanee untied the corner of his rags and held out the piece of money. “Here, merchant,” he said, “take this and give me one of your gazelles.”

The men were very much surprised to see the money. Then they said, “You are very foolish, Haamdaanee. You get a piece of money nobody knows how nor where, and then instead of buying for yourself a good meal you spend it for a gazelle which will also need food.”

Haamdaanee, however, paid no attention to their jeers. He took the gazelle, and the merchant took his money, glad to have sold an animal that was so weak and small it seemed as though it would die at any rate.

Haamdaanee carried the little animal home with him to the hovel where he lived, and made a bed for it in one corner, but there was little he could give it to eat. If there had not been enough for one there was still less for two. However, he was not sorry he had bought it. It was company for him and he loved it as though it were his daughter.

One day when Haamdaanee was preparing to go out to the dust heap, the gazelle said to him, “Master, why do you not open the door and let me run out in the forest to find food for myself? If you will do this I will return to you in the evening, and you will only have had one to feed instead of two.”

Haamdaanee was wonder-struck at hearing the gazelle speaking. “How is this?” he cried. “You can talk, and yet you are only a little animal I bought with a piece of money from the dust heap.”

“That is true,” said the gazelle, “but I am not an ordinary animal. I am very wise. Let me out every day so that I may run about, and I may find some way of helping your fortunes. I will always come back to you, for you bought me and you are my master.”

The little gazelle spoke so sweetly that Haamdaanee opened the door as it wished, and immediately it ran away and into the deep forest, and was lost to sight. Then Haamdaanee was very sad. He thought, “That was a foolish thing to do. I will never see my gazelle again, and it was such a pretty, gentle little thing.”

However, when he returned to his hovel that evening he found the little animal already there. “Master,” it said, “I feasted well in the forest to-day, but I saw and heard nothing that would help your fortunes. But courage! To-morrow I will go out again, and who knows what may happen.”

So the next morning Haamdaanee again opened the door for the gazelle, and after this he let it out every day, and it remained away until evening, when it came running home again.

But one day when the gazelle went into the forest the food it liked was very scarce, and it wandered on further than it had ever gone before. After a while it began to dig up roots with its sharp little hoofs. Presently it struck something hard, and when it turned it out from the earth it proved to be an enormous diamond.

The gazelle was delighted. It rolled the diamond up in leaves and took it in its mouth to carry it home to Haamdaanee. But then it began to think. “What could my master do with a diamond like this? No one would ever believe I had found it in the forest; if he showed it to people they would certainly think he had stolen it, and he would be beaten or taken before the judges. No, I must do something better than that with the stone.”

The wise little animal thought for a while, and then with the diamond still in its mouth, it bounded away through the forest.

It ran on and on for three days and nights without stopping, until it came to a city where a great king lived. This king had a daughter who was so beautiful that the fame of her had spread everywhere; even Haamdaanee and his gazelle had heard of her.

The little animal went straight into the city and through the streets to the palace, and up the steps and into the room where the king was sitting with all his councilors about him. There it bent its fore knees and touched its forehead to the ground three times in token of respect.

“What is this animal, and where does it come from?” asked the king.

No one could tell him anything about it, but the gazelle itself answered.

“Oh, great king, I am a messenger from my master the Prince Daaraaee,” it said, “and I have come from far away, a three days and three nights’ journey through the forest.”

“And what is the message your master sends?” asked the king.

“He wishes you to give him your beautiful daughter for a wife, and he sends you a small gift. It is but a poor thing, and scarce worth the sending, but it was as much as I could carry.”

The gazelle then unwrapped the leaves from the diamond and presented it to the king. All were wonder-struck when they saw the size and brightness of the diamond. It was worth a kingdom.

“Your master must be very rich and powerful,” said the king. “Has he many more jewels like this?”

“That is nothing to what he has in his treasure house,” answered the gazelle.

“And he wishes the hand of my daughter?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

The king was delighted at the idea of having such a rich man for a son-in-law, and promised that Prince Daaraaee should have the hand of the princess.

The gazelle then made ready to leave, but first the king fed it with rice and milk, and hung a golden collar about its neck.

“In ten days’ time I will return with my master. Be ready to receive him and his escort at that time,” said the gazelle, and then it bounded away and was lost to sight in the forest.

Now all this time Haamdaanee had been mourning his gazelle as lost. Five days had passed without its returning. The sixth day he was sitting very mournfully on the dust heap when he felt something brush against him. He looked around, and what was his joy to see his little gazelle beside him. He stroked and caressed it, and then he saw the golden collar around its neck.

“What means this golden collar? And where have you been,” asked Haamdaanee.

“I have been far away at the palace of a king,” exclaimed the gazelle. “It was he who gave me this collar, and more than that, he promised that you should have his beautiful daughter for a wife.”

At first Haamdaanee could not believe what the gazelle told him, but when he had heard the whole story he was filled with terror. “You told the king I was a great prince,” he said, “and when he sees me in my rags and filth I will be beaten and driven out into the forest to die.”

“Do not be afraid, master,” answered the gazelle. “Only do as I tell you and you will be received with great honor, and have a princess as your wife.”

At last he persuaded Haamdaanee to come with him, and they set out together through the forest. They went on and on until they were within a day’s journey of the king’s palace, and then the gazelle stopped. “Master,” said he, “do you now strip off your rags and hide them. Bathe in the stream, and as you bathe be careful to knock yourself against the stones so that you will show bruises. Then lie down beside the stream, and when I return from the city with an escort do nothing but groan and cry, ‘Oh, those robbers! Those cruel and wicked robbers.’”

Haamdaanee stripped off his rags and stepped into the stream, and while he was still bathing and bruising himself the gazelle bounded away to the palace of the king. It rushed into the room where the king was and fell before him, breathless and apparently exhausted. “Oh, my master! My poor master!” it cried.

The king in great anxiety asked what had happened to the prince.

The gazelle told him that he and his master had come a long way through the forest in safety, and were within a day’s journey of the city when they had been set upon by robbers. The robbers had stolen everything; they had stripped the Prince Daaraaee of all his magnificent clothes and jewels, and had beaten him and left him for dead on the banks of a stream. The Prince’s escort had been carried away captive. “And I alone escaped,” said the gazelle, “for I am so small they did not notice me. But oh, my poor master! If he is not already dead he must soon perish unless help is sent to him.”

The king immediately commanded that a strong escort should set out to help the prince. He himself went with them, and a horse was loaded with magnificent robes for Prince Daaraaee to put on. They started out, and the gazelle ran along to show them the way.

When they reached the banks of the stream there lay Haamdaanee groaning, and bruised black and blue as though he had been beaten. They raised him up and clothed him in the magnificent robes they had brought, but all he would say was, “Oh, those robbers! Those cruel, wicked robbers!”

They put him on a great black horse and took him back to the palace of the king, and when so dressed and mounted he appeared a very handsome man indeed. The king was delighted with him, and the princess was no less so, and soon the marriage was celebrated with great feasting and rejoicing.

For awhile Haamdaanee lived with his wife at the palace of the king, and he was so happy, and everything was so fine, that he could hardly believe in his good fortune. But after a time the princess began to ask her husband when they were to return to his own country. She longed to see his magnificent palace and all the treasures it contained.

Haamdaanee took the gazelle aside and said to it, “What are we to do now? I am surely ruined. The princess wishes to see the palace I have told her of, and I have no place to take her but the wretched hovel that will not even shelter us from the weather.”

“Do not be afraid, master,” answered the gazelle. “I will manage everything for you. Only let me go, and do you tell the princess you have sent me home to prepare for your reception. I will get a palace for you, and when I have it I will return and let you know.”

Haamdaanee did as the gazelle bade him. The princess was told that the little animal was to set out immediately and would put all in order at the palace, so she was willing to wait a while longer before seeing her husband’s treasures.

The gazelle at once started out on its journeyings. It ran on and on for several days, and then it came to another city even handsomer than that of the king, but when it entered the streets everything was silent and deserted. There was not a soul to be seen. The little animal went through one street after another and at last it came to a palace, and that too was silent and deserted. It knocked with its hard hoof, and after a long time the door opened a crack and an old, old woman looked out. As soon as she saw the gazelle she seemed frightened to death.

“How have you come here?” she cried. “Do you not know that this city belongs to a terrible snake with three heads, and that he eats every living thing? He has eaten all the people of the city except myself and he only left me alive that I might cook his meals and sweep his house. If he finds you here he will surely kill you.”

“I am too tired to go farther,” said the gazelle, “and I am so small that I can easily hide in a corner where the snake will not find me. Do but let me in to rest for a while. The snake need never know it.”

For a time the old woman refused but the gazelle talked so sweetly that after a time she consented and allowed the little animal to slip through the crack of the door and into the house.

When it was inside it began to look about it. “This place would just do for my master if I could but get rid of the snake,” it thought. Presently it saw a bright sword that hung on the wall. “What sword is that?” it asked of the old woman.

“It belongs to the snake,” she answered, “and it is so sharp that it will cut anything at one stroke.”

“That is the sword for me,” said the gazelle, and it took it down from the wall in spite of all the old woman could say.

And now a great rushing noise was heard outside, and the old woman began to quake and tremble. “That is the snake,” she cried, “and when he finds you here he will surely kill us both.”

“Do not be afraid,” said the gazelle. “I will tell you what to say and do, and who knows but what we may rid ourselves of him for good and all.”

Now the snake was at the door and it began to sniff about. “What is this I smell?” it cried. “Some living thing has entered the city.”

“Nonsense,” answered the old woman. “A bird flying over the house dropped a piece of meat down the chimney, and I am cooking it for your dinner.”

Then the snake said, “Open the door that I may come in.”

“I cannot do that or the meat will burn,” answered the old woman. “Come in through the window.”

Then the snake stuck one of its heads in through the window. The gazelle was ready, and the moment the head appeared it cut it off with the sword, and the sword was so very sharp and keen that the snake did not feel the blow. “How dark it is in the house,” it said. “I can see nothing,” and it stuck its other head in. Quick as a flash the gazelle cut off that head too. “Oh! I think a hair fell on my neck,” said the snake, and it stuck its third head in through the window. Then the gazelle cut off that head too, and the snake was dead.

The old woman rejoiced to know she was now free from the snake, and she could not make enough of the little animal that had killed him.

“I must go and get my master,” said the gazelle, “for now that I have killed the snake, this city and all that is in it belongs to him; and if anyone asks you must say, This is the palace of Prince Daardaaee.”

When Haamdaanee heard from the gazelle all that he had done, and how the palace and the treasures of the snake now belonged to him, he did not know what to do with himself for joy.

He and the princess soon set out together, and with them a number of people from the city, to whom Haamdaanee promised houses and wealth when they should reach his city.

The gazelle ran along beside them pointing out the way, and when they reached the palace it was more magnificent than anything the princess had dreamed of.

So they lived there very happily, and the little gazelle had soft cushions to lie on, and all the milk and rice that it could eat, so it did not have to run off into the forest any more, but could stay in the palace and take its ease.