Ajapa the Tortoise

by Margaret Baumann

  The Cock and the hens crowded round Tortoise, fluttering, pecking, and clucking excitedly.

  “Tell us what is to happen! What is to happen?”

  “Now,” began Tortoise gravely, looking at the Cock, “what happens if someone comes into the farm-yard in the night or early morning?”

  “I crow as loudly as I can,” said the Cock with pride, “and the farmer comes running out with a hunting-knife to defend his property.”

  “Ah!” said Tortoise wisely. “I thought as much. And what happens when dawn breaks?”

  The Cock puffed out his chest, and his red comb and green-black feathers looked very handsome in the sunshine.

  “At dawn,” said the Cock solemnly, “I crow very loudly indeed, and keep on crowing until everybody is awake, and the farmer’s daughter comes out to scatter grain for us and to collect the eggs.”

  “Ah!” said Tortoise again. “I thought as much! . . . Well, tomorrow morning you will crow for the last time.”

  The Cock’s feathers rustled with fear.

  “Alas! alas! How can that be? A moment ago the farmer’s daughter carried off my favourite wife to a fate of which we do not care to think, and now you say that I am to follow her tomorrow!”

  “Yes,” said Tortoise. “I have been to the house, and I heard the farmer’s daughter say that the first time you crow to-morrow shall be the signal for your death, as they intend to boil you for dinner.”

  “Oh! oh!” cried the poor Cock. “How terribly sad! And what an insult to boil me, as if I were not tender enough to roast! What can I do?”

  “Well,” replied Tortoise kindly, “I should advise you not to crow at all to-morrow, and then the farmer’s daughter will have no signal, and you will not be thrown into the stew-pot.”

  The Cock thanked him very warmly and agreed not to crow at all. Then Tortoise went home, chuckling to himself, and had a sound sleep.

  A little while before dawn, he left the house with a large basket and returned to the farm-yard. The Cock saw him, but was so afraid of the farmer’s daughter that he dared not crow. Tortoise went softly to the nests of all the hens, collecting the eggs in his basket, until he could carry no more. Then he prepared to go home, saying to the foolish Cock as he went:

  “Thank you! Your silence may not have saved you, but it has certainly saved me.”

  Long after the dawn, the farmer awoke, wondering why he had not heard the Cock crowing as usual. When the farmer’s daughter went to collect the eggs, she was astonished too, for there were none!

  “Alas!” said the farmer. “Something is wrong with our fowls. Perhaps they are starving. Scatter plenty of corn this morning, daughter!”

  Now when the Cock saw the girl coming, he was filled with dread. She stretched out her hand, and he was sure that she meant to seize him in spite of his silence. But from her hand fell a golden shower of corn, and in his relief the Cock crowed loudly. To his amazement nothing happened, and he was so glad that he went on crowing for quite a long time.

  The Cock crowed, and the hens laid eggs, and Tortoise and Nyanribo had a great feast and were very happy—only, of course, they never went near that farm-yard again!

  XXVII. Tortoise Lets His House

  Now Tortoise was such a spendthrift fellow that it was by no means unusual for him to be very hard up. The long-suffering Nyanribo made no complaint, even when money was very scarce indeed.

  One day Tortoise stood in his doorway, looking out and wondering how to make a little money, when Mouse passed by in a great hurry with her seven children.

  “Karo, Mouse!” said Tortoise. “How are you?”

  “Oh dear!” gasped Mouse. “I am all in a flutter! What are we to do? The farmer has begun cutting down the grass in his field, and we are homeless! Oh, my poor children! Oh, what shall we do?”

  “You will have to find another house,” said Tortoise, thinking this might be a way of earning money. “How would you like to have my house?”

  “This great mansion? Oh, dear me, no! All we need is a little cottage about the size of your shell... Now, how would you like to let us have your shell to live in?”

  “Good gracious!” exclaimed poor Tortoise. “What should I do without it?”

  “Your wife will take care of you,” replied Mouse eagerly. “I will pay you a small bag of cowries every week for your shell, until we can find a proper house in one of the farmer’s fields.”

  Tortoise was greatly tempted by the prospect of earning so much money in such a simple way, and at last he consented, and gave up his shell to Mouse and her family.

  But when Nyanribo saw him without his shell she cried:

  “Oh, how queer you look! I would never have married you if I thought you were such a flabby, feeble creature!”

  “You would look exactly the same without your shell,” protested her husband indignantly. “I have done this noble deed for your sake, and now you are ungrateful!”

  Tortoise led a very miserable life in his shell-less condition. Everybody laughed at him, and to avoid them he stayed in the house all day and went out only at night. At the end of the week he asked Mouse for the payment she had promised.

  “What rubbish is this about a promise?” said Mouse, looking contemptuously at him. “I’m sure I can make better use of the money than you could. Be off with you!”

  “If you will not pay,” said Tortoise, with as much dignity as possible, “you must find another house.”

  “Nothing of the sort! We are very comfortable here, and intend to stay as long as we like!”

  And she went on with her task of making a cosy bed of dry grass for her seven children.

  Tortoise sat at home lamenting his sad fate to Nyanribo.

  “Here am I without a shell, the laughing-stock of everybody, and that wretched Mouse will not pay me a single cowrie! I am a very unlucky fellow!”

  Thus matters went on from week to week.

  “Go away, you queer-looking thing. I am busy cooking!” Mouse would say when he asked her for money. Or again:

  “Go away, you hideous monster. Can’t you see that my children are asleep?”

  Tortoise at length decided that nothing but a trick would persuade Mouse to give up her abode. He stood one day outside his shell, near enough for Mouse to hear him, and called out to Nyanribo:

  “Wife, let us go to the fields. The maize is nearly a foot high!”

  “What!” cried Mouse, popping out her head. “Is the maize so high already? In that case I will go and find a nice new house in the field.”

  And off she went.

  Tortoise made haste to push her seven lazy children out of the shell; they were big and fat and well able to look after themselves. Then Tortoise crept into his shell, and sighed with thankfulness.

  Soon Mouse returned, indignant, having found that the corn was only a few inches high, and not tall enough to conceal a mouse from the farmer’s sharp eyes. But Tortoise refused to come out again, though she promised him two bags of cowries a week for his shell.

  “Go and live in an ant-hill!” said Tortoise rudely. “I know you will never pay me anything. There are plenty of empty houses—but mine will never be empty again!”

  So Mouse collected her seven children together and set off to find another house, and from that day to this Tortoise has never been seen out of his shell.

  XXVIII. The Monkeys and the Gorilla

  “Corn to eat,

  Life is sweet!

  Corn to eat,

  Life is sweet!”

  sang Tortoise blithely, as he walked through the forest one fine, dry day, feeling very pleased with himself and the world in general.

  He stopped singing rather suddenly, for there in front of him in the path stood the huge, hideous, hairy gorilla. The gorilla lived by himself in the forest, and everyone was afraid of him.

  Tortoise was afraid like the rest, and his heart began to beat very fast when he saw him standing there so close to him.

  “Karo!” said the gorill
a, in a rough, deep voice.

  “Karo!” said Tortoise nervously, wondering whether to turn back or go straight on under the gorilla’s legs.

  “You sound very happy,” said the gorilla.

  “Well,” replied Tortoise more boldly, “it is a very beautiful day, and I like to sing when I am at peace with the world—but I am sorry indeed if my voice disturbed you.”

  “Certainly not!” said the gorilla. “To begin with, life has been very dull lately, since my wife got killed by a hunter, and in addition I am driven to distraction by the chattering of the monkeys. The wretched creatures seem to be on every branch of every tree, and no matter how deep into the forest I may go, I get no peace from them. I would like to crack all their heads together, but it would take me a whole rainy season, for they are so many!”

  “Perhaps,” Tortoise suggested timidly, “I can give them a hint that you would like a little silence now and then. . . .”

  “A hint? Do you think those monkeys would take a hint?”

  “Perhaps they would take a present instead,” suggested Tortoise.

  “Ah!” said the gorilla. “They might! Yes, that is a good idea. You can tell them that if they will stay at the edge of the forest, I will give them . . . I will give them . . .”

  “Pineapples!” said Tortoise eagerly.

  “Very well,” returned the gruff gorilla. “I will give them pineapples, though I shall have to go far from my haunts to gather them.”

  Tortoise made haste to go in search of the monkeys. He found a whole family of them—uncles and cousins, babies and grandfathers, playing noisily in the banana trees.

  After he had called to them for some time, they paused in their chattering and listened to him.

  “I have just seen the gorilla,” began Tortoise, but, with a cry of terror, the monkeys fled.

  Tortoise patiently followed them, until he found them climbing about some more trees and swinging on the creepers. When they at last were quiet enough to hear him, he began again:

  “The gorilla says . . .”

  But with another shriek of fear and a lightning scramble of toes and tails, the monkeys left him far behind.

  “Dear! dear! How tiresome!” grumbled Tortoise, as he went slowly after them. “They seem to be quite afraid of the gorilla.”

  This time he was more cautious and said:

  “Please don’t run away whenever I speak! What is the matter?”

  “The gorilla,” said all the monkeys together.

  “Why, what is wrong with the gorilla?”

  “Ugh! We fear him more than anything else in the forest. We know he is lying in wait all the time to eat us up.”

  “And he won’t leave us in peace anywhere!” added an old grandfather monkey, in a very bad humour. “Wherever we go we come across him, and he makes our life miserable.”

  Now a very profitable plan came into Tortoise’s head, and he replied: “Why don’t you send the gorilla a present, and ask him very politely to stay in his own part of the forest? I am sure he would be glad to leave you alone.”

  The monkeys were very much excited and talked all at once, but Tortoise made out that they agreed with his suggestion and wished him to offer the gorilla a present.

  “Good!” said Tortoise. “I am an obliging fellow, and quite willing to help you. I think the gorilla would be pleased with a gift of bananas! But I will ask him at once.”

  Tortoise briskly returned to the gorilla and told him that the monkeys had agreed to keep silent for half the day if he gave them twelve large pineapples. Feeling very pleased, the gorilla swung away through the branches to the edge of the forest and brought back twelve choice pineapples from a field. Tortoise at once hid them in a hollow at the foot of a tree and went back to the monkeys, who were waiting for him with a great many questions.

  Tortoise told them that he had found the gorilla in a very savage mood, but that in the end their enemy had agreed not to molest them if they would give him a dozen large bunches of bananas.

  In a twinkling Tortoise found himself with a large stock of bananas in addition to his pineapples, and as he had a good store of provisions at home just then, he left all the fruit in the hollow at the foot of the tree, and went away, singing cheerfully:

  “Fruit to eat,

  Life is sweet!

  Fruit to eat,

  Life is sweet!”

  And there perhaps the story would have ended, but for one inquisitive monkey who went poking about among the trees the next day, and suddenly came across Tortoise’s hiding-place. He called the other monkeys to come and see.

  “Why,” exclaimed the old grandfather monkey, “here are our bananas! And what are all these pineapples doing here? Tortoise is up to some trick, I am sure.”

  Just then he saw the gorilla swinging from tree to tree, with his mighty arms. With his heart beating very fast the grandfather monkey called out:

  “Lord Gorilla! Mighty Gorilla!”

  The gorilla looked very fiercely down at him.

  “Be off!” he growled. “After accepting my pineapples, you still come to torment me! I will devour you all. . . .”

  “Oh, sir!” quavered the old monkey. “Your pineapples are hidden at the foot of this tree—and so are the bananas we sent you as a present yesterday!”

  The gorilla was astonished and dropped down from his branch to peer into the hollow.

  “My pineapples!” he said in a rage. “My twelve large pineapples!”

  “And our twelve large bunches of bananas!” piped the monkeys in chorus.

  After a very little discussion they realized the trick which Tortoise had played them.

  “You may as well take the pineapples now that I have gathered them,” said the gorilla graciously.

  “And, of course, there is no sense in wasting these beautiful bananas, if you will kindly accept them. . . .”

  Thus they parted quite amicably.

  “But wait till I see Tortoise!” growled the gorilla, with his mouth full of banana. “I will crush his shell!”

  And the monkeys, with their mouths full of pineapple, replied:

  “We will tear him to bits—after you have crushed his shell!”

  But this great catastrophe never happened, because all the time Tortoise had been sitting in the long grass near by, listening to them. When they had all gone away, he crept very softly home.

  “Alas! My luscious pineapples! Alas! My sweet bananas!” he groaned.

  But he was thankful at least that he had escaped without being crushed by the gorilla and torn to pieces by the monkeys.

  When he was at a safe distance from the forest, he held up his head boldly and sang:

  “Fools to cheat,

  Life is sweet!

  Fools to cheat,

  Life is sweet!”

  XXIX. The Wrestlers

  Now in the country of which this story is related, wrestling is a national pastime, and in every village, in the cool of evening, the boys and young men may be seen locked together, swaying to and fro, testing the strength of their muscles.

  Once upon a time the rumour spread that in a certain village there was a wrestler who had never known defeat—a small man, but very powerful, and no doubt wearing a secret charm which protected him against all his rivals.

  The fame of this village wrestler grew, and came at length to the ears of the King, who, like his subjects, was passionately fond of the manliest of sports, though he himself, being a ruler, could only sit and applaud the struggles of others, whereas in secret he greatly longed to demonstrate his own prowess before an excited and cheering crowd.

  “What is the name of this man?” he asked the messenger who had told him of the undefeated wrestler.

  “His name, Your Majesty, is Lagbara.”

  “Well, then, I desire to see with my own eyes if Lagbara deserves his reputation. Send for the man, and let him be brought before me!”

  Messengers were despatched with all haste to Lagbara’s village, and in two
days’ time they brought the wrestler back with them to the palace.

  But when the King saw the man about whom he had heard such wonders, he was struck not so much by the strength of his shoulders, as by the extreme ugliness of his features.

  “Never,” thought the King to himself, “have I seen such a repulsive-looking man. Yet all the same it may be true that he is a good wrestler. I will try his powers.”

  The King’s wrestlers were sent for, and Lagbara overthrew them one after another. As his favourites were carried away by the slaves, the King had to admit that the ugly man was certainly a terrible opponent; but the curious thing was that in every case the match was over in a few moments. On approaching Lagbara, each wrestler seemed to become paralyzed and was at once overthrown.

  The King complimented the stranger on his strength, for no one had overthrown the royal wrestlers before.

  “This is but child’s play, Sire!” exclaimed Lagbara. “I can with ease overthrow a giant eight feet tall.”

  “We will see!” said the King. “There is such a man in my Court—a warrior of great renown. If you can overthrow him, I will give you any reward you ask.”

  The Court was thrown into a state of great excitement when the news was made known, and from far and wide people flocked to see the wrestling-match between Lagbara, the stranger, and Ogunro, the giant warrior.

  The day and the hour at length arrived, and before the eyes of a great assembly Lagbara walked calmly into the circle which had been drawn on the ground. From the other side came Ogunro, the giant, staring with contempt at his small opponent.

  The signal was given, and the two ran together; but as soon as they were face to face, Ogunro appeared transfixed with terror. He stood motionless, and in a few moments lay stretched out on the ground with his neck broken.

  The crowd was silent with astonishment, and then broke into mighty shouts:

  “Long live Lagbara! Hail the undefeated wrestler, the breaker of giants! Hail the King’s champion!”

  The King, robed in purple cloth and seated under the royal white umbrella, then asked Lagbara what reward he claimed for his victory.