the "Country of Swindlers," and on learning the name from his men, the young merchant trembled with great fear. It was the very country of which his father had warned him, and now he was compelled to land on it, for to divert the course of the ships was impossible.
Resigning himself to the hands of fate, he ordered the vessels to be driven to the nearest port. This was being done when the merchant, seeing a snow-white heron, was led by his evil genius to shoot it dead. No sooner did this happen than a fuller, who was washing clothes near by, ran to the spot and fell to the ground, beating his breast and tearing his hair. He took up the dead heron, kissed it a hundred times, and then furiously abused the merchant for having killed his father, who as a heron had been helping him in washing clothes. The merchant, as was natural, laughed at the idea, and the washerman hastened to the king and filed a petition for damages. The alleged offender was hauled before the court, and on his failing to defend himself—for what defence could be made in such a preposterous case?—the king, who was a partner in his subject's exactions, decreed that one of the ships with her merchandise should be given as satisfaction to the wronged washerman.
The merchant, much crest-fallen, went back to his ships, and had the mortification of witnessing the execution of the decree. He hoped, however, that with the remaining three he would be able to escape from this accursed country. But of them also he was destined to be deprived in a very short time. As soon as he was on board, a woman with two urchins, having cunningly succeeded in getting his father's name from one of his men, drew near and said, "O my son, do you not know what I am to you? I am your stepmother, the widow of your father" (here she gave the latter's name) "left penniless by him. Make an ample provision for me and these my children." The merchant, of course, scoffed at so absurd a claim, and thrust the woman out of his presence. But the matter did not end there. Like the washerman, the woman
