It made his body spotless and shining healthy.  Suddenly a cobra appeared, but Tergisi showed no fear.  As he swam back, a crocodile came close, opening its mouth to swallow him, but Tergisi showed no fear, and the danger passed.

Then Tergisi went to meet Sila Mabo on a path in the bush.  Sila Mabo ran away and Tergisi only scratched Sila Mabo’s back with his dagger, saying, “If you tell anybody that it was I who hit you, you will die.”  Sila Mabo went home, but early the next morning his beautiful wife discovered the scratch on his back.  “Who hit you in the back, Sila Mabo?” she asked.  “Did you run away in battle?”  If only she had been content to have a husband with a scratch on his back?  But she insisted, even when he threatened that he would die if he told her.  She did not believe him.  So the king confessed: “It was Bey Tergisi who hit me there.”

He died at once.  Such was the effect of the potent eye-medicine, when used as a dagger poison.  Sila Mabo and his wife had no sons.  As soon as the news spread that the king had died, there formed two parties each supporting one of his brothers: the Sagone sided with Bey Tergisi and the Dabora fought for Dabo, his half-brother.  The civil war lasted for many years, until the ancient city of Jerra-Wagadu was completely destroyed, and all the princes were dead.  The city was lost forever.

Oh Jerra! Oh Agada! Oh Ganna! Oh Silla! Oh Fasa!

Tergisi confronts Sila Mabo, who immediately runs away.

Shrubs grew up in the once busy streets and bats hung in the empty houses.  Many, many years later, a Fulani herdsman saw something gleaming on the ground in the grass where he was spending the night.  As he slowly walked toward it he thought it might be a snake’s scales shining in the faint moonlight.  But it was the sword Dama Ngile.

The herdsman picked it up and brought it to his master, the Fulani king, who now ruled the land.  He in turn was dispossessed when El Haji Omar swept through the land and conquered it, and he in turn was defeated by the French.  Who now owns the sword Dama Ngile?

This again is a tale about politics and about politics and about marriage.  There are numerous narratives in the world of Islam about husbands who were pressured by their wives into telling their secrets and died as a result of their weakness, for a man discusses secrets only with his heart.