His wife said: "I will flee with you, and we will find your mother.
And waste no regrets on your poverty."

With that she gathered up all the house held in the way of pearls and
precious stones, put them in a bag and had her husband tie it around
his waist. Then she also gave him an umbrella, and in the middle of
the night they climbed the wall with the aid of a ladder, and stole
away.

His wife had also said to him: "Take the umbrella on your back and run
as fast as ever you can! Do not open it, and do not look around! I
will follow you in secret."

So he turned North and ran with all his might and main. He had been
running for a day and a night, had covered nearly a hundred miles, and
passed the boundaries of the wild people's country, when his legs gave
out and he grew hungry. Before him lay a mountain village. He stopped
at the village gate to rest, drew some food from his pocket and began
to eat. And he looked around without being able to see his wife.

Said he to himself: "Perhaps she has deceived me after all, and is not
coming with me!"

After he had finished eating, he took a drink from a spring, and
painfully dragged himself further. When the heat of the day was
greatest a violent mountain rain suddenly began to fall. In his haste
he forgot what his wife had told him and opened his umbrella. And out
fell his wife upon the ground.

She reproached him: "Once more you have not listened to my advice. Now
the damage has been done!"

Quickly she told him to go to the village, and there to buy a white
cock, seven black tea-cups, and half a length of red nettlecloth.

"Do not be sparing of the silver pieces in your pocket!" she cried
after him as he went off.

He went to the village, attended to everything, and came back. The
woman tore the cloth apart, made a coat of it and put it on. No sooner
had they walked a few miles before they could see a red cloud rising
up in the South, like a flying bird.

"That is my mother," said the woman.

In a moment the cloud was overhead. Then the woman took the black
tea-cups and threw them at it. Seven she threw and seven fell to earth
again. And then they could hear the mother in the cloud weeping and
scolding, and thereupon the cloud disappeared.

They went on for about four hours. Then they heard a sound like the
noise of silk being torn, and could see a cloud as black as ink, which
was rushing up against the wind.

"Alas, that is my father!" said the woman. "