One day, after the queen was recovered, as the king of Persia, Gulnare, the queen her mother, King Saleh her brother, and the princesses their relations, were discoursing together in her majesty’s bed-chamber, the nurse came in with the young prince Beder in her arms.  King Saleh as soon as he saw him, ran to embrace him, and taking him in his arms, kissed and caressed him with the greatest demonstrations of tenderness.  He took several turns with him about the room, dancing and tossing him about, when all of a sudden, through a transport of joy, the window being open, he sprung out, and plunged with him into the sea.

The king of Persia, who expected no such sight, believing he should either see the prince his son no more, or else that he should see him drowned, was overwhelmed in affliction.  “Sir,” said queen Gulnare (with a quiet and undisturbed countenance, the better to comfort him), “let your majesty fear nothing; the young prince is my son as well as yours, and I do not love him less than yourself.  You see I am not alarmed; neither in truth ought I to be.  He runs no risk, and you will soon see the king his uncle appear with him again, and bring him back safe.  Although he be born of your blood, he is equally of mine, and will have the same advantage his uncle and I possess, of living equally in the sea, and upon the land.”  The queen his mother and the princesses his relations affirmed the same thing; yet all they said had no effect on the king, who could not recover from his alarm till he again saw prince Beder.

The sea at length became troubled, when immediately King Saleh arose with the young prince in his arms, and holding him up in the air, reentered at the window from which he had leaped.  The king of Persia being overjoyed to see Prince Beder again, and astonished that he was as calm as before he lost sight of him; King Saleh said, “Sir, was not your majesty in alarm, when you first saw me plunge into the sea with the prince my nephew?” “Alas prince,” answered the king of Persia, “I cannot express my concern.  I thought him lost from that very moment, and you now restore life to me by bringing him again.”  “I thought as much,” replied King Saleh, “though you had not the least reason to apprehend danger; for before I plunged into the sea, I pronounced over him certain mysterious words, which were engraved on the seal of the great Solomon the son of David.  We practise the like in relation to all those children that are born in the regions at the bottom of the sea, by virtue whereof they receive the same privileges as we have over those people who inhabit the earth.  From what your majesty has observed, you may easily see what advantage your son Prince Beder has acquired by his birth on the part of his mother Gulnare my sister:  for as long as he lives, and as often as he pleases, he will be at liberty to plunge into the sea, and traverse the vast empires it contains in its bosom.”