The two went to the father of the maiden; they spent seven days and seven nights at his house, and were fully satisfied with everything. They were on the way home a third time. “Well,” said the king, “you have no reason to refuse this time.”
“Well, and very well, do I like the match,” said Miach Lay; “but I will not marry this lady. If I had married the first lady, I should have had no chance of getting the second, and the second is ten times better than the first; if I had married the second lady, I should have had no chance of this one, and she is twenty times better than the second.”
“I have lost all patience with you,” said the king, “and I turn the back of my hand to you from this out.”
“I’m fully satisfied,” said Miach Lay, so they came home, and passed that night without conversation. The following morning, when Miach Lay rose, he said to his father, “I am for leaving the house now; will you prepare for me the best ship that you have, and put in it a good store of provisions for a long voyage?”
The vessel was prepared, and fully provisioned for a day and a year. The king’s son went on board, sailed out of the harbor, and off to sea. He never stopped sailing till he entered a harbor in the kingdom of Greece. There was a guard there on watch at the harbor with a keen eye on all ships that were passing or coming. The King of Greece was at war in that time with the King of Spain, and knew not what moment his kingdom would be invaded.
The guard saw the vessel coming when she was so small to the eye that he could not tell was it a bird or a vessel that he was looking at. He took quick tidings to the castle; and the king ordered him to go a second time and bring tidings. When he reached the sea, the ship was inside, in the harbor.
“Oh,” said the king, when the guard ran to him a second time, “that is a wonderful vessel that was so far away a few minutes ago as not to be told from a bird, and is now sailing into harbor.”
“There is but one man to be seen on board,” said the guard.
In front of the king’s castle was the landing-place, the only one of the harbor; and even there no one went beyond the shore without passing through a gate where every man had to give an account of himself. There was a chosen champion guarding the gate, who spoke to Miach Lay, and asked, “Who are you, and from what country?”
“It is not the custom for a man of my people to answer a question like that till he is told first what country he is in, and who asks the question.”