“You try your hand at this!” said Schalu to his friend. “This shall be your adventure.” So Saran stamped upon the ground and called out “Stop!” in a loud voice, but the dwarfs paid no attention to him at all. “Stop, I say!” he repeated louder than before. “I have a great marvel to show you!” At the word “marvel” the fighters ceased at once and stood staring at the two friends.
“Marvel, did you say?” exclaimed the leader. “Pooh! I don’t care how wonderful it is, it can’t be as great as ours!”
“What is yours?” said Saran. “If it [[126]]is as interesting as mine, you shall each have as many emeralds as your two hands can carry.” At that all the dwarfs began to laugh scornfully.
“Show him! Show him!” they cried to their leader, “and then we will rob him of all his emeralds if, in truth, he has any.”
The leader turned and picked up a pair of old, shabby-looking boots. “These,” he said, “are magic, and if anybody puts even one of them on and makes a wish to be in any place under the sun, he will find himself there in the twinkling of an eye.”
“That is indeed wonderful!” said Saran, “and here is your pay, but, in sooth, you deserve neither boots nor emeralds!” Then, to the great astonishment of the little men, Saran, uttering a wish for emeralds, opened his mouth and poured them forth, a great stream of glorious green gems. With a shout the dwarfs snatched them up, pushing and tearing them from each other.
“Quick!” said Saran to the Prince. [[127]]“Put on your cap and take my hand, so that they will not see us! We can make better use of the magic boots than these wicked dwarfs can.” So they each hastily slipped on a boot and, being invisible because of the magic cap, passed out from among the dwarfs before they had stopped fighting over the jewels.
“And now,” said Saran, “while we have on the boots, let us test their power by wishing to be somewhere.”
“Very well,” said Schalu, “I wish that we may be taken at once to a country that needs a king!”
Immediately the two friends felt themselves picked up and whizzed through the air with such speed that they could see nothing and feel nothing but the wind rushing by their ears. Then they were put down gently upon the ground and found themselves in a strange country.