Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/182

158 King sent him into the Diamond-kingdom, that he might be thoroughly instructed in all kinds of knowledge. He was accompanied in his journey by the son of the king's chief minister, who was also to share his studies, but who was as dull as he was intelligent. On their arrival in the Diamond-kingdom, they gave each of them the sum with which they had been provided by their parents to two Lamas to conduct their education, and spent twelve years with them.

At the end of the twelve years the minister's son proposed to the king's son that they should now return home, and as the Lamas allowed that the king's son had made such progress in the five kinds of knowledge that there was nothing more he could learn, he agreed to the proposal, and they set out on their homeward way.

All went well at first; but one day passed, and then another, and yet another, that they came to no source of water, and being parched nigh unto death with thirst, the minister's son would have laid him down to die. As he stood hesitating about going on, a crow passed and made his cry of "ikerek." The prince now encouraged his companion, saying, "Come but a little way farther, and we shall find water."

"Nay, you deceive me not like an infant of days," answered the minister's son. "How shall we find water? Have we not laboured over the journey these three days, and found none; neither shall we find it