“Let me pluck out one of your eyes,” said the sister.

“Pluck it out,” said the promised bride, “for our people are already on the way.”

The stepmother gave her to drink and plucked out one of her eyes.

“A little more,” she said.

“Let me take out your other eye,” answered the cruel woman.

The young girl drank and let her pluck out the other eye.  Scarcely had she left the house than the stepmother thrust her out on the road.  She dressed her own daughter and put her in the place of the blind one.  They arrive.

“Comb yourself,” they told her, and there fell dust.

“Walk,” and nothing happened.

“Laugh,” and her front teeth fell out.

All cried, “Hang H’ab Sliman!”

Meanwhile some crows came flying near the young blind girl, and one said to her:  “Some merchants are on the point of passing this way.  Ask them for a little wool, and I will restore your sight.”

The merchants came up and the blind girl asked them for a little wool, and each one of them threw her a bit.  The crow descended near her and restored her sight.

“Into what shall we change you?” they asked.

“Change me into a pigeon,” she answered.

The crows stuck a needle into her head and she was changed into a pigeon.  She took her flight to the house of the schoolmaster and perched upon a tree near by.  The people went to sow wheat.

“O master of the field,” she said, “is H’ab Sliman yet hanged?”

She began to weep, and the rain fell until the end of the day’s work.

One day the people of the village went to find a venerable old man and said to him: 

“O old man, a bird is perched on one of our trees.  When we go to work the sky is covered with clouds and it rains.  When the day’s work is done the sun shines.”

“Go,” said the old man, “put glue on the branch where it perches.”

They put glue on its branch and caught the bird.  The daughter of the stepmother said to her mother: 

“Let us kill it.”

“No,” said a slave, “we will amuse ourselves with it.”

“No; kill it.”  And they killed it.  Its blood spurted upon a rose-tree.  The rose-tree became so large that it overspread all the village.  The people worked to cut it down until evening, and yet it remained the size of a thread.

“To-morrow,” they said, “we will finish it.”  The next morning they found it as big as it was the day before.  They returned to the old man and said to him: 

“O old man, we caught the bird and killed it.  Its blood gushed upon a rose-tree, which became so large that it overspreads the whole village.  Yesterday we worked all day to cut it down.  We left it the size of a thread.  This morning we find it as big as ever.”

“O my children,” said the old man, “you are not yet punished enough.  Take H’ab Sliman, perhaps he will have an expedient.  Make him sleep at your house.”  H’ab Sliman said to them, “Give me a sickle.”  Someone said to him:  “We who are strong have cut all day without being able to accomplish it, and do you think you will be capable of it?  Let us see if you will find a new way to do it.”