Then her eldest brother came and sang the same song and received the same answer; her mothers’s brother and father’s sister then came and sang, also in vain; so they all went home.

Just then the intended bridegroom with his party arrived at the village and were welcomed with refreshments and invited to camp under a tree; but while the bridegroom’s party were taking their ease, the bride’s relations were in a great to-do because the bride was missing; and when the matchmaker came and asked them to get the marriage ceremony over at once that the bridegroom might return, they had to take him into the house and tell him what had happened.  The matchmaker went and told the bridegroom, who at once called his men to him and mounted his horse and rode off in a rage.  Now it happened that the drummers attached to the procession had stopped just in front of the home of the Bonga Kora and were drumming away there; so when the bridegroom rode up to them his horse passed over the door of the Bonga Kora’s home and stamped on it so hard that it flew open; standing just inside was the Sarsagun girl; at once the bridegroom pulled her out, placed her on his horse and rode off with her to his home.

CLIII.  The Schoolboy and the Bonga.

There was once a boy who went every day to school and on his way home he used always to bathe in a certain tank.  Every day he left his books and slate on the bank while he bathed and no one ever touched them.  But one day while he was in the water a bonga maiden came out of the tank and took his books and slate with her under the water.  When the boy had finished bathing he searched for them a long time in vain and then went home crying.  When the midday meal was served he refused to eat anything unless his books were found:  his father and mother promised to find them for him and so he ate a very little.  When the meal was finished his father and mother went to the bonga maiden and besought her—­singing

    “Give daughter-in-law, give
    Give our boy his pen, give up his pen.”

The bonga maiden sang in answer

    “Let the owner of the pen
    Come himself and fetch it.”

Then the boy’s eldest brother and his wife went and sang

    “Give, sister-in-law, give,
    Give our brother his pen:  give up his pen.”

The bonga maiden sing in answer

    “Let the owner of the pen
    Come himself and fetch it”

Then the boy’s maternal uncle and his wife went and sang the same song and received the same answer.  So they told the boy that he must go himself.