第23章 THE CRAB THAT PLAYED WITH THE SEA(3)

And Pau Amma said,'I do not choose yet.Look!there is that girl who saw me running away at the Very Beginning.If she had spoken then,the Eldest Magician would have called me back,and all this would never have happened.What will she do for me?'

And the little girl-daughter said,'This is a good nut that I am eating.If you choose,I will make a Magic and I will give you this pair of scissors,very sharp and strong,so that you and your children can eat cocoa-nuts like this all day long when you come up from the Sea to the land;or you can dig a Pusat Tasek for yourself with the scissors that belong to you when there is no stone or hole near by;and when the earth is too hard,by the help of these same scissors you can run up a tree.'

And Pau Amma said,'I do not choose yet,for,all soft as I am,these gifts would not help me.Give me back my shell,O Eldest Magician,and then I will play your play.'

And the Eldest Magician said,'I will give it back,Pau Amma,for eleven months of the year;but on the twelfth month of every year it shall grow soft again,to remind you and all your children that I can make magics,and to keep you humble,Pau Amma;for Isee that if you can run both under the water and on land,you will grow too bold;and if you can climb trees and crack nuts and dig holes with your scissors,you will grow too greedy,Pau Amma.'

Then Pau Amma thought a little and said,'I have made my choice.

I will take all the gifts.'

Then the Eldest Magician made a Magic with the right hand,with all five fingers of his right hand,and lo and behold,Best Beloved,Pau Amma grew smaller and smaller and smaller,till at last there was only a little green crab swimming in the water alongside the canoe,crying in a very small voice,'Give me the scissors!'

And the girl-daughter picked him up on the palm of her little brown hand,and sat him in the bottom of the canoe and gave him her scissors,and he waved them in his little arms,and opened them and shut them and snapped them,and said,'I can eat nuts.Ican crack shells.I can dig holes.I can climb trees.I can breathe in the dry air,and I can find a safe Pusat Tasek under every stone.I did not know I was so important.Kun?'(Is this right?)'Payah-kun,'said the Eldest Magician,and he laughed and gave him his blessing;and little Pau Amma scuttled over the side of the canoe into the water;and he was so tiny that he could have hidden under the shadow of a dry leaf on land or of a dead shell at the bottom of the sea.

'Was that well done?'said the Eldest Magician.

'Yes,'said the Man.'But now we must go back to Perak,and that is a weary way to paddle.If we had waited till Pau Amma had gone out of Pusat Tasek and come home,the water would have carried us there by itself.'

'You are lazy,'said the Eldest Magician.'So your children shall be lazy.They shall be the laziest people in the world.They shall be called the Malazy--the lazy people;'and he held up his finger to the Moon and said,'O Fisherman,here is the Man too lazy to row home.Pull his canoe home with your line,Fisherman.'

'No,'said the Man.'If I am to be lazy all my days,let the Sea work for me twice a day for ever.That will save paddling.'

And the Eldest Magician laughed and said,'Payah kun'(That is right).

And the Rat of the Moon stopped biting the line;and the Fisherman let his line down till it touched the Sea,and he pulled the whole deep Sea along,past the Island of Bintang,past Singapore,past Malacca,past Selangor,till the canoe whirled into the mouth of the Perak River again.Kun?'said the Fisherman of the Moon.

'Payah kun,'said the Eldest Magician.'See now that you pull the Sea twice a day and twice a night for ever,so that the Malazy fishermen may be saved paddling.But be careful not to do it too hard,or I shall make a magic on you as I did to Pau Amma.'

Then they all went up the Perak River and went to bed,Best Beloved.

Now listen and attend!

From that day to this the Moon has always pulled the sea up and down and made what we call the tides.Sometimes the Fisher of the Sea pulls a little too hard,and then we get spring tides;and sometimes he pulls a little too softly,and then we get what are called neap-tides;but nearly always he is careful,because of the Eldest Magician.

And Pau Amma?You can see when you go to the beach,how all Pau Amma's babies make little Pusat Taseks for themselves under every stone and bunch of weed on the sands;you can see them waving their little scissors;and in some parts of the world they truly live on the dry land and run up the palm trees and eat cocoa-nuts,exactly as the girl-daughter promised.But once a year all Pau Ammas must shake off their hard armour and be soft-to remind them of what the Eldest Magician could do.And so it isn't fair to kill or hunt Pau Amma's babies just because old Pau Amma was stupidly rude a very long time ago.

Oh yes!And Pau Amma's babies hate being taken out of their little Pusat Taseks and brought home in pickle-bottles.That is why they nip you with their scissors,and it serves you right!

CHINA-GOING P's and 0's Pass Pau Amma's playground close,And his Pusat Tasek lies Near the track of most B.I.'s.

U.Y.K.and N.D.L.

Know Pau Amma's home as well As the fisher of the Sea knows 'Bens,'M.M.'s,and Rubattinos.

But (and this is rather queer)

A.T.L.'s can not come here;

O.and O.and D.O.A.

Must go round another way.

Orient,Anchor,Bibby,Hall,Never go that way at all.

U.C.S.would have a fit If it found itself on it.

And if 'Beavers'took their cargoes To Penang instead of Lagos,Or a fat Shaw-Savill bore Passengers to Singapore,Or a White Star were to try a Little trip to Sourabaya,Or a B.S.A.went on Past Natal to Cheribon,Then great Mr.Lloyds would come With a wire and drag them home!

You'll know what my riddle means When you've eaten mangosteens.

Or if you can't wait till then,ask them to let you have the outside page of the Times;turn over to page 2where it is marked 'Shipping'on the top left hand;then take the Atlas (and that is the finest picture-book in the world)and see how the names of the places that the steamers go to fit into the names of the places on the map.Any steamer-kiddy ought to be able to do that;but if you can't read,ask some one to show it you.