“I have come from your brother to ask whether you can tell me about the three doves which used to bathe in your brother’s pond.”
“My dear lad, I know nothing about them, but as soon as you get up in the morning I will call my apprentices, to find if any one of them knows anything about the doves.”
In the morning they got up and went into the forest. The sorcerer blew a whistle, and at once hosts of devils appeared, such a multitude that they darkened the whole forest.
The lad was frightened, but the sorcerer said: “Don’t be afraid; not a hair of your head shall be harmed.”
The devils asked what was their master’s will.
He said: “Does any one of you know anything, about the three doves which used to bathe in my brother’s pond?”
None of them knew anything. The sorcerer looked about him and asked: “Where is the lame one?”
The lame one had been left behind, but he was hurrying up for fear he should be too late. He came and asked what was his master’s will. The sorcerer answered: “I want to find out whether you know anything about those three doves that used to bathe in my brother’s pond.”
“Of course I know about them, for I have been driving them before me. They are bathing in the Red Sea now.”
The sorcerer said: “You must take up this man and carry him as far as their gold-roofed palace,” and he took the lad aside and whispered in his ear: