The boat went on and on till it reached the sea. After it had
gone many furlongs into the open sea, the boat came near a whirlpool
where the prince saw a great many rubies of monstrous size floating on
the waters. Such large rubies no one had ever seen, each being in value
equal to the wealth of seven kings. The prince caught hold of
half-a-dozen of those rubies, and put them on board. His mother said,
"Darling, don't take up those red balls; they must belong to somebody
who has been shipwrecked, and we may be taken up as thieves." At the
repeated entreaties of his mother, the prince threw them into the sea,
keeping only one tied up in his clothes. The boat then drifted toward
the coast, and the queen and the prince arrived at a certain port where
they landed.
The port where they landed was not a small place; it was a large city,
the capital of a great king. Not far from the palace, the queen and her
son hired a hut where they lived. As the prince was yet a boy, he was
fond of playing at marbles. When the children of the king came out to
play on a lawn before the palace, our young prince joined them. He had
no marbles, but he played with the ruby which he had in his possession.
The ruby was so hard that it broke every taw against which it struck.
The daughter of the king, who used to watch the games from a balcony of
the palace, was astonished to see a brilliant red ball in the hand of
the strange lad, and wanted to take possession of it.
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