back soon, and it is more than a year since you went! How was I
to know that you were alive?'

At her words the husband took courage, and spoke hastily:

'Yes, you promised you would go to war and bring back some
prisoners, and you have not done it.'

'I DID go, and made many prisoners,' retorted the turtle angrily,
drawing out his knife. 'Look here, if she won't be MY wife, she
sha'n't be YOURS. I will cut her in two; and you shall have one
half, and I the other.'

'But half a woman is no use to me,' answered the man. 'If you
want her so much you had better take her.' And the turtle,
followed by his relations, carried her off to his own hut.

Now the woman saw she would gain nothing by being sulky, so she
pretended to be very glad to have got rid of her husband; but all
the while she was trying to invent a plan to deliver herself from
the turtle. At length she remembered that one of her friends had
a large iron pot, and when the turtle had gone to his room to put
away his fringes, she ran over to her neighbour's and brought it
back. Then she filled it with water and hung it over the fire to
boil. It was just beginning to bubble and hiss when the turtle
entered.

'What are you doing there?' asked he, for he was always afraid of
things that he did not understand.