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Meanwhile her brothers sat below waiting for her and wondering why she did not come. ‘What can have happened to her!’ exclaimed the eldest brother. ‘Perhaps she has fallen into the fire, too.’ So one of the others ran upstairs and found his sister stretched on the floor. ‘Udea! Udea!’ he cried, but she did not move or reply. Then he saw that she was dead, and rushed down to his brothers in the courtyard and called out, ‘Come quickly, our sister is dead!’ In a moment they were all beside her and knew that it was true, and they made a bier and laid her on it, and placed her across a camel, and said to the camel, ‘Take her to her mother, but be careful not to halt by the way, and let no man capture you, and see you kneel down before no man, save him who shall say “string” [Footnote: ‘Riemen.’] to you. But to him who says “string,” then kneel.’

So the camel started, and when it had accomplished half its journey it met three men, who ran after it in order to catch it; but they could not. Then they cried ‘Stop!’ but the camel only went the faster. The three men panted behind till one said to the others, ‘Wait a minute! The string of my sandal is broken!’ The camel caught the word ‘string’ and knelt down at once, and the men came up and found a dead girl lying on a bier, with a ring on her finger. And as one of the young men took hold of her hand to pull off the ring, he knocked out the man-eater’s finger-nail, which had stuck there, and the maiden sat up and said, ‘Let him live who gave me life, and slay him who slew me!’ And when the camel heard the maiden speak, it turned and carried her back to her brothers.

Now the brothers were still seated in the court bewailing their sister, and their eyes were dim with weeping so that they could hardly see. And when the camel stood before them they said, ‘Perhaps it has brought back our sister!’ and rose to give it a beating. But the camel knelt down and the girl dismounted, and they flung themselves on her neck and wept more than ever for gladness.

‘Tell me,’ said the eldest, as soon as he could speak, ‘how it all came about, and what killed you.’

‘I was waiting in the upper chamber,’ said she, ‘and a nail of the man-eater’s stuck under my nail, and I fell dead upon the ground. That is all I know.’

‘But who pulled out the nail?’ asked he.

‘A man took hold of my hand and tried to pull off my ring, and the nail jumped out and I was alive again. And when the camel heard me say “Let him live who gave me life, slay him who slew me!” it turned and brought me back to the castle. That is my story.’

She was silent and the eldest brother spoke. ‘Will you listen to what I have to say, my brothers?’

And they replied, ‘How should we not hear you? Are you not our father as well as our brother?’

‘Then this is my advice. Let us take our sister back to our father and mother, that we may see them once more before they die.’

And the young men agreed, and they mounted their horses and placed their sister in a litter on the camel. So they set out.

At the end of five days’ journey they reached the old home where their father and mother dwelt alone. And the heart of their father rejoiced, and he said to them, ‘Dear sons, why did you go away and leave your mother and me to weep for you night and day?’

‘Dear father,’ answered the son, ‘let us rest a little now, and then I will tell you everything from the beginning.’

‘All right,’ replied the father, and waited patiently for three days.

And on the morning of the fourth day the eldest brother said, ‘Dear father, would you like to hear our adventures?’

‘Certainly I should!’

‘Well, it was our aunt who was the cause of our leaving home, for we agreed that if the baby was a sister she should wave a white handkerchief, and if it was a brother, she should brandish a sickle, for then there would be nothing to come back for, and we might wander far away. Now our aunt could not bear us, and hated us to live in the same house with her, so she brandished the sickle, and we went away. That is all our story.’

And that is all this story.

[Marchen und Gedichte aus der Stadt Tripolis. Von Hans Stumme.]