First, “She whom one loves the best is the most beautiful;” secondly, “Patience leads to safety;” thirdly, “There is a good in every patient waiting.”
He came back to his bride, who said:
“Commit these wise words to memory; you will no doubt have need of them.”
“Farewell!” said the youth.
“Farewell!” said the young bride.
The lad departed from her. After a long journey the caravan camped in a desert near Arabia. There had camped before them also a large caravan composed of eighty other merchants. The lad was tired and soon fell into a deep sleep. There were many men and animals in the caravan, and all were thirsty. In that desert there was only one well, and that was dangerous; of all who had gone down to draw water, not one had ever come out. In the middle of the night, the lad was wakened by the crying of a herald in the caravan, who announced that each merchant was offering ten pieces of gold to the man who would descend into the well and draw water for men and animals. The lad, coveting the sum, promised to go down. His master pitied him, and tried to prevent him, but it was too late.
“You are going down into that dangerous well of your own free will,” he said; “your blood shall be upon your own head. But if you come out safely, one of my camels shall be yours with the merchandise upon it.”
They let the lad down with a rope. Reaching the bottom, he saw a flowing river of fresh water; he drank and quenched his thirst. Lifting up his eyes, nearby he saw a Giant sitting with a maiden on each side, one colored and the other white.
“Look, human being,” exclaimed the Giant; “I will ask you a question. If you answer it rightly I will let you go; if not, I will kill you with this club, as I have killed so many men before you. Which of these two maidens is the beautiful one, and which the ugly?”
The lad remembered the first maxim of the old monk, and said: “She whom one loves the most is the most beautiful.”