The little gazelle spoke so sweetly that Haamdaanee opened the door as it wished, and immediately it ran away and into the deep forest, and was lost to sight. Then Haamdaanee was very sad. He thought, “That was a foolish thing to do. I will never see my gazelle again, and it was such a pretty, gentle little thing.”
However, when he returned to his hovel that evening he found the little animal already there. “Master,” it said, “I feasted well in the forest to-day, but I saw and heard nothing that would help your fortunes. But courage! To-morrow I will go out again, and who knows what may happen.”
So the next morning Haamdaanee again opened the door for the gazelle, and after this he let it out every day, and it remained away until evening, when it came running home again.
But one day when the gazelle went into the forest the food it liked was very scarce, and it wandered on further than it had ever gone before. After a while it began to dig up roots with its sharp little hoofs. Presently it struck something hard, and when it turned it out from the earth it proved to be an enormous diamond.
The gazelle was delighted. It rolled the diamond up in leaves and took it in its mouth to carry it home to Haamdaanee. But then it began to think. “What could my master do with a diamond like this? No one would ever believe I had found it in the forest; if he showed it to people they would certainly think he had stolen it, and he would be beaten or taken before the judges. No, I must do something better than that with the stone.”
The wise little animal thought for a while, and then with the diamond still in its mouth, it bounded away through the forest.
It ran on and on for three days and nights without stopping, until it came to a city where a great king lived. This king had a daughter who was so beautiful that the fame of her had spread everywhere; even Haamdaanee and his gazelle had heard of her.
The little animal went straight into the city and through the streets to the palace, and up the steps and into the room where the king was sitting with all his councilors about him. There it bent its fore knees and touched its forehead to the ground three times in token of respect.
“What is this animal, and where does it come from?” asked the king.
No one could tell him anything about it, but the gazelle itself answered.