The Baboons Who Went This Way And That: Folktales From Africa. Alexander McCall Smith
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By the time that the mouth of the cave was half open, the girl realized that it was not her brother who was standing outside. When she saw the cannibal, her heart gave a leap of fear and she struggled to roll the rock back. The cannibal, though, was too quick and had seized her before she could seal off the cave mouth.
The girl screamed as the cannibal lifted her off the ground and began to tie her arms and legs with a rope he had with him. Then, when she was firmly tied up, he went to a place nearby and began to make a fire so that he could cook the girl and eat her. As he made the fire, he sang a special song, of the sort that cannibals sing, in which he told of how a poor hungry cannibal had found a fat girl in a cave.
The girl wept with sorrow at the thought of what had happened to her. She wept for her father and mother, whom she would never see again, and she wept for her stupidity in trying to stay in so dangerous a place. Through her tears, she sang a sad song, about how a girl who lived in a cave was captured by a wicked cannibal.
The boy had felt so uneasy on his way home that he had come back to the cave. Now he was hiding in the grass, listening to the sad song of his sister. When he saw the cannibal bending over his fire, the boy rushed forward and pushed him into the flames. The many skins which the cannibal was wearing soon caught fire and he ran wildly away, letting out strange cries as he ran.
The boy untied his sister and then led her back to their father’s new place. That night, the girl told her father of what had happened. He was worried at the thought of the narrow escape that she had had, but he was relieved that she was now safe. He was glad, too, to hear that the cannibal had run away, as this meant that the family could now return to that place where they had been so happy, and where the girl knew they would be happy once again.
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