daughter as she hurried along.

‘Do go home,' cried the townspeople, as they heard her; ‘we will
go and look for your daughter; you are only a woman, and it is a
task that needs strong men.'

But she answered, ‘Yes, go; but I will go with you! Perhaps it
will be only her corpse that we shall find after all. She has
most likely been stung by asps, or eaten by wild beasts.'

The men, seeing her heart was bent on it, said no more, but told
one of the girls she must come with them, and show them the place
where they had left Dschemila. They found the bundle of wood
lying where she had dropped it, but the maiden was nowhere to be
seen.

‘Dschemila! Dschemila!' cried they; but nobody answered.

‘If we make a fire, perhaps she will see it,' said one of the
men. And they lit a fire, and then went, one this way, and one
that, through the forest, to look for her, whispering to each
other that if she had been killed by a lion they would be sure to
find some trace of it; or if she had fallen asleep, the sound of
their voices would wake her; or if a snake had bitten her, they
would at least come on her corpse.

All night they searched, and when morning broke and they knew no
more than before what had become of the maiden, they grew weary,
and said to the mother: ‘It is no use. Let us go home, nothing
has happened to your daughter, except that she has run away with