On the third day they met the Prince again, and he asked why they had not come; but they pleaded as an excuse that they had forgotten to ask their sister. The Prince then gave them a golden ball and said: “When you see this, you will remember.”
That night as they were going to bed, the small golden ball rolled out on the floor, and seeing it, they remembered, and told their sister of the Prince’s invitation.
She was very displeased with them for not having complied with it earlier; and told them that they must go and see him the very next day.
On the morrow the two boys went to the Palace, where the Prince received them very kindly, and gave them all sorts of good things to eat and drink, saying to himself: “Had I had children, they would by this time be the same ages as these lads.”
One day, soon after this, the bird advised the sister of the boys to invite the Prince to dinner.
“How can I entertain so grand a man?” said she.
“Make him a dish of kheer (rice cooked with milk and sugar); and besides this, to please him, another dish of pearls.”
“But where shall I get the pearls?”
“Send a man to dig beneath that tree, and you will find as many as you require,” replied the bird.
So the girl did as she was told, and sent a man to dig. He soon found a box full of pearls, and these she placed in a very beautiful dish, and put it alongside the plate of kheer.