Instantly the villagers went away and each caught hold of his own wife
and throttled her, and the next day they all went off to sell their
dead wives. Many a weary mile did they tramp, but got nothing but hard
words or laughter, or directions to the nearest cemetery, from people
to whom they offered dead wives for sale. At last they perceived that
they had been cheated somehow by that goldsmith. So off they rushed
home, seized the unhappy man, and, without listening to his cries and
entreaties, hurried him down to the river bank and flung
him--plop!--into the deepest, weediest, and nastiest place they could
find.

'That will teach him to play tricks on us,' said they. 'For as he
can't swim he'll drown, and we sha'n't have any more trouble with him!'

Now the goldsmith really could not swim, and as soon as he was thrown
into the deep river he sank below the surface; so his enemies went away
believing that they had seen the last of him. But, in reality, he was
carried down, half drowned, below the next bend in the river, where he
fortunately came across a 'snag' floating in the water (a snag is, you
know, a part of a tree or bush which floats very nearly under the
surface of the water); and he held on to this snag, and by great good
luck eventually came ashore some two or three miles down the river. At
the place where he landed he came across a fine fat cow buffalo, and
immediately he jumped on her back and rode home. When the village
people saw him, they ran out in surprise, and said:

'Where on earth do you come from, and where did you get that buffalo?'

'Ah!' said the goldsmith, 'you little know what delightful adventures I