Now when you go back to your palace, you will find on the seventh pedestal the statue of the diamond which your father desired you to obtain." And, with these words, the Spirit-king vanished, taking with him the girl, who uttered a great and piercing cry to heaven at having been thus deceived.

Very sorrowfully the young king then began his journey home.

All along the way he kept regretting that girl, and regretting the cruelty which he had practised in deceiving her and her parents.

And he began to say to himself, "Accursed be the gift of the king of the Spirits! Of what worth to me is a woman of diamond any more than a woman of stone?
What is there in all the world half so beautiful or half so precious as a living girl such as I discovered?
Fool that I was to give her up for the sake of a statue!" But he tried to console himself by remembering that he had obeyed his dead father's wish.
Still, he could not console himself.

Reaching his palace, he went to his secret chamber to weep alone, and he wept night and day, in spite of the efforts of his ministers to comfort him.