the man-eater arrives we will push him into it.' So they all set to
work, and prepared the great hole, and set fire to the wood, till it
was reduced to a mass of glowing charcoal. And when the man-eater came,
and called as usual, 'Udea, what did you see your grandfather doing?'
she answered, 'I saw him pull off the ass's skin and devour the ass, and
he fell in the fire, and the fire burned him up.'

Then the man-eater was filled with rage, and he flung himself upon the
iron door and burst it in. On the other side stood Udea's seven
brothers, who said, 'Come, rest yourself a little on this mat.' And the
man-eater sat down, and he fell right into the burning pit which was
under the mat, and they heaped on more wood, till nothing was left of
him, not even a bone. Only one of his finger-nails was blown away, and
fell into an upper chamber where Udea was standing, and stuck under one
of the nails of her own fingers. And she sank lifeless to the earth.

[Illustration: UDEA FOUND LIFELESS BY HER SEVEN BROTHERS]

Meanwhile her brothers sat below waiting for her and wondering why she
did not come. 'What can have happened to her!' exclaimed the eldest
brother. 'Perhaps she has fallen into the fire, too.' So one of the
others ran upstairs and found his sister stretched on the floor. 'Udea!
Udea!' he cried, but she did not move or reply. Then he saw that she was
dead, and rushed down to his brothers in the courtyard and called out,
'Come quickly, our sister is dead!' In a moment they were all beside her
and knew that it was true, and they made a bier and laid her on it, and
placed her across a camel, and said to the camel, 'Take her to her
mother, but be careful not to halt by the way, and let no man capture
you, and see you kneel down before no man, save him who shall say
"string"[1] to you. But to him who says "string," then kneel.'

[Footnote 1: 'Riemen.']

So the camel started, and when it had accomplished half its journey it
met three men, who ran after it in order to catch it; but they could
not. Then they cried 'Stop!' but the camel only went the faster. The
three men panted behind till one said to the others, 'Wait a minute! The
string of my sandal is broken!' The camel caught the word 'string' and
knelt down at once, and the men came up and found a dead girl lying on a
bier, with a ring on her finger. And as one of the young men took hold
of her hand to pull off the ring, he knocked out the man-eater's
finger-nail, wh