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One of these slaves on his return said to the king: "As for Antar, I have not even heard his name; but as I passed by the tribe of Tenim, I slept one night in the tents of the tribe Byah. There I saw a colt of remarkable beauty. He belonged to a man named Jahir, son of Awef. I have never seen a colt so fine and swift." This recital made a profound impression upon Cais.
Then he found that all the children in the village were crying for their mothers and the men were asking what had become of their wives; then the herdboy said that in the night he had seen some women going in the direction of the jahir than but he had not seen them come back and they had better go and look there.
About supper time he saw a number of women who were witches collect from all sides at the jahir than: at this sight he was more frightened than ever; the witches then called up the bongas and they also summoned two tigers; then they danced the lagre dance and they combed the hair of the two tigers.
All the tribes admired their points, and the tribe of Byah had become celebrated above all others, because of the mare and stallion which pertained to it. As for this fine colt, one day, when his sire Ocab had been put out on pasture, he was being led by the daughter of Jahir along the side of a lake at noonday, and there he saw the mare Helweh, who was tethered close to the tent of her master.
He seized the young horse, and took him home with him, leaving his mother in grief for his difference. "As for Jahir," he said, "this colt belongs to me, and I have more right to him than anyone else." The news of the colt's disappearance soon reached his owner's ears. He assembled the chiefs of the tribe, and told them what had happened. They sent to Jahir, and he was reproached bitterly.
Then the people asked him where he had spent the night and he said that he was benighted while looking for his calf and as he heard tigers roaring near the jahir than he was frightened and had stayed in the jungle. They told him that when the tigers began to roar the calf had come running home by itself and this was good news to the herd boy.
The tribe highly applauded this act, and Jahir was so humiliated by the generosity with which he had been treated, that he returned mare and colt to Kerim, adding to the gift a pair of male and a pair of female camels.
"Jahir," they said, "you have not suffered, yet have done injustice, in that you carried off that which belonged to another man." "Say no more," answered Jahir, "and spare me these reproaches, for, by the faith of an Arab, I will not return the colt, unless compelled by main force. I will declare war against you first."
So the villagers went off and found their wives lying dead by the jahir than and the two tigers also dead; and they knew that the women must have been witches to go there at night; so they wept over them and burned the bodies.
At that moment the tribe was not prepared for a quarrel; and several of them said to Jahir: "We are too much attached to you to push things to such an extreme as that; we are your allies and kinsmen. We will not fight with you, though an idol of gold were at stake."
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