"'Prince,' she said, 'Yesterday the Princess Jessalie chanced to look into a small pool of water on the shore where she walks. As quick as could be I enchanted the pool and turned it into a crystal mirror, so that the face of the Princess is fixed upon it forever. Look, I have brought it away with me.'
"At once the Prince regarded the mirror, and this was what he saw in it. Calm lazy eyes of blue, and below them cheeks dimpled and rosy, and twin lips which made you jealous of each, because ever they kissed one the other, and brown hair which must have fallen down about this face as it looked into the pool of water, and blue around it all, the heavens which spread above her as she had bent to gaze at her own fairness.
"'Ah!' said Ali, 'This is my fate! Take me to this woman swiftly that I may see her and die contented.'
"'Not so,' said the mermaid, 'be guided by me and in time you shall marry her. Give me a message and I will carry it to the Princess, but as yet she must not know your name, or it might be that the King hearing it would put you to death. Speak your message to this shell and I will answer for the rest.'
"Thus saying she pointed to a white shell which lay on the beach. The Prince took it up, and laughing, whispered a few words in its curled lip, and then as the mermaid bade him threw it far out into the sea.
"'Now,' said the mermaid, 'If you tell a lady once that you love her she laughs. If you tell her twice she is angry, but when you have ten times said 'I love,' she will either hate or love you, or perhaps may hate and love by turns, each for five minutes as sometimes doth chance. Now, therefore, many times you must say to her I love you.'
"'But how shall I do this?' asked Prince Ali.
"'Sir,' she said, 'look upwards and clap your hands thrice.'
"Without further words the young man did as he was told, when instantly a great white swan descended from a vast height and alighted on the water's edge beside them. The mermaid at once began to dig in the sand, and presently found a large oyster shell which she desired Ali to open. As he did so a necklace of pearls fell out, the like of which no jeweller ever saw before or since.
"'Now!' said the mermaid, 'hang this on the swan's neck for a present to the Princess, and with thy finger write on the bird's breast a message.'