mortar was to tie it in the very middle of her bundle, and had
just unfastened her sticks, when she heard her companions'
voices.

‘Dschemila, what are you doing? it is almost dark, and if you
mean to come with us you must be quick!'

But Dschemila only replied, ‘You had better go back without me,
for I am not going to leave my mortar behind, if I stay here till
midnight.'

‘Do as you like,' said the girls, and started on their walk home.

The night soon fell, and at the last ray of light the mortar
suddenly became an ogre, who threw Dschemila on his back, and
carried her off into a desert place, distant a whole month's
journey from her native town. Here he shut her into a castle, and
told her not to fear, as her life was safe. Then he went back to
his wife, leaving Dschemila weeping over the fate that she had
brought upon herself.

Meanwhile the other girls had reached home, and Dschemila's
mother came out to look for her daughter.

‘What have you done with her?' she asked anxiously.

‘We had to leave her in the wood,' they replied, ‘for she had
picked up an iron mortar, and could not manage to carry it.'

So the old woman set off at once for the forest, calling to her