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“Ala! my soldiers who are many, catch my horse which is a pinto, which paces, which walks fast, which goes, which gallops, which has sore sides.” “It is here already, the horse which is a pinto, the saddle is already placed.”
“Ala! now my wife Iwánen, I am going to leave you here. Keep your honor as a person of wealth. Perhaps some one will entice you and we two will be ashamed before the people of our town.”
After that he went and started—Tolagan who went toward the south. He whipped the pinto, he ran, he walked.
When he was in the town of Kaodanan his body was thirsty. “I go to the place of betel-nuts, where I shall drink the water which is white like coconut oil.” He arrived at the place of the betel-nuts. He met a maiden who was like the place of a large fire. There was no other such maiden.
There was not a place he did not search for her. He went to the head man. “Ala, presidente of our town, I come to ask for companions while I search for my wife, who vanished last night.” He gave (the searchers), but when they did not find her, he went to another town. He went to the place of Baīngan in the town of the north. “Good morning, I came to ask companions to search for her who was absent last night.” “If that is still your trouble” said Baīngan, “you go and Page 169see my sister, who is Imbangonan, whom you shall take for wife, who cannot belt herself unless there are nine belts. She is in the middle of the place of the betel-nuts.”
“Good morning, Imbangonan,” said Tolagan. “I came to see you, for your brother told me we are to marry if you like me.”