The men slunk away, much ashamed of themselves; but the master came up to Mohammed. ‘Get you gone!’ he said, ‘there is nothing more for you to do! You have killed my mother, you have slain my children, you have stolen my sheep, you have drowned my cows; I have now no work to give you.’
‘First give me the strip of your skin which belongs to me of right, as you have broken your contract!’
‘That a judge shall decide,’ said the master; ‘we will go before him.’
‘Yes, we will,’ replied Mohammed. And they went before the judge.
‘What is your case?’ asked the judge of the master.
‘My lord,’ said the man, bowing low, ‘my shepherd here has robbed me of everything. He has killed my children and my old mother; he has stolen my sheep, he has drowned my cows in the sea.’
The shepherd answered: ‘He must pay me what he owes me, and then I will go.’
‘Very well,’ returned the master, ‘let him reckon up how long he has been in my service.’
‘That won’t do,’ replied Mohammed, ‘I want my strip of skin, as we agreed in the contract.’
Seeing there was no help for it, the master cut a bit of skin, and gave it to Mohammed, who went off at once to his uncle.
‘Now we are rich, dear uncle,’ cried he; ‘we will sell our cows and sheep and go to a new country. This one is no longer the place for us.’
The sheep were soon sold, and the two comrades started on their travels. That night they reached some Bedouin tents, where they had supper with the Arabs. Before they lay down to sleep, Mohammed called the owner of the tent aside. ‘Your greyhound will eat my strip of leather,’ he said to the Arab.
‘Well, then, I will give him to you in exchange,’ replied the Arab.
Mohammed waited till everyone was fast asleep, then he rose softly, and tearing the bit of skin in pieces, threw it down before the greyhound, setting up wild shrieks as he did so.
‘Oh, master, said I not well that your dog would eat my thong?’
‘Be quiet, don’t make such a noise, and you shall have the dog.’
So Mohammed put a leash round his neck, and led him away.
In the evening they arrived at the tents of some more Bedouin, and asked for shelter. After supper Mohammed said to the owner of the tent, ‘Your ram will kill my greyhound.’
So in the night Mohammed killed the greyhound, and laid his body across the horns of the ram. Then he set up shrieks and yells, till he roused the Arab, who said: ‘Take the ram and go away.’