Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/104

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Folk-lore Tales of Central Africa.

at the same time jeering at their friend, and saying, "Thou, master, who sawest the lioness with a young cub on the mountain, wast afraid to seize it, and came and called us. We went to the hill and seized the cub of the lioness. Bring out meat that we may eat plentifully over this lioness' cub."

So he gave them forty hoes, and they were satisfied; but they knew that he wished to get the lioness' cub so that he might have abundance of meat to eat.

The young lion ate heartily, and soon grew to a great size.

It came to pass on a certain day that he went with his lion to hunt buffalo. He went to the swamps, and came upon a large herd of buffalo.

He said to the lion, "My lion, how is it that thou dost not seize the buffalo? If thou dost not seize them I will kill thee."

So the lion roared, and the buffalo were affrighted, and he seized three. The others fled for fear and escaped.

He then called the lion and said, "Stay here, and I will go and call the people." So he went to call the people.

And it came to pass, while he was going to call the people, some people came up behind him and said, "See, here is a lion that has killed three buffalo." The lion roared.

Then they said, "Let us carry away the meat." The lion roared greatly when he saw that they were to carry off the buffalo meat, and he seized and killed a great many of them.

Then the man came up, and the people whom he had called, and when they saw the people lying dead around, they said, "This lion of yours will not cease till he has killed all the people."

The owner of the lion replied, "Yes, indeed, but I will slay the lion lest he kill the people and bring law-suits upon me."

So he went and flayed the buffalo, and took the liver of