Then the hermit looked through his telescope, and saw that the other two noblemen were living in caves like his, in different parts of the same desert. Having found this out, he took the princess by the hand, and led her on until they found the other hermits. When all were re-united, the princess related her adventures since the foundering of the ship, in which her husband had gone down, and from which she alone had been saved.
The three noble hermits were pleased to see her alive once again, but at once decided that they ought to send her back to the king, her father.
Then they made the princess a present of the wonderful telescope, and the wonder-working ointment, and placed her on the wonderful carpet, which carried her and her treasures quickly and safely to her father's palace. As for the three noblemen, they remained, still living like hermits, in the desert, only they visited each other now and then, so that the years seemed no longer so tedious to them. For they had many adventures to relate to each other.
The king was exceedingly glad to receive his only child back safely, and the princess lived with her father many years; but neither the king nor his daughter could entirely forget the three noble friends who, for her sake, lived like hermits in a wild desert in a far-off land.
There was once a king who had three sons. One evening, when the young princes were going to sleep, the king ordered them to take good note of their dreams and come and tell them to him next morning. So, the next day the princes went to their father as soon as they awoke, and the moment the king saw them he asked of the eldest, "Well, what have you dreamt?"
The prince answered, "I dreamt that I should be the heir to your throne."
And the second said, "And I dreamt that I should be the first subject in the kingdom."
Then the youngest said, "I dreamt that I was going to wash my hands, and that the princes, my brothers, held the basin, whilst the queen, my mother, held fine towels for me to dry my hands with, and your majesty's self poured water over them from a golden ewer."
The king, hearing this last dream, became very angry, and exclaimed, "What! I--the king--pour water over the hands of my own son! Go away this instant out of my palace, and out of my kingdom! You are no longer my son."