it, and he will
not be satisfied with any compensation I can make, but demands the
original hook. Then the Deity Salt-Possessor built a boat and set him in
it, and said to him, Sail on in this boat along this way, and you will
come to a palace built of fishes' scales. It is the palace of the Deity
Ocean-Possessor. There will be a cassia tree by the well near the palace.
Go and sit in the top of that tree, and the daughter of the
Ocean-Possessor will come to thee and tell thee what to do.

So he sailed away in the boat and came to the palace of the
Ocean-Possessor, and he climbed the cassia tree and sat there. And the
maidens of the daughter of the Sea Deity came out to draw water, and saw
the beautiful young man sitting in the tree. Then he asked them for some
water. And they drew water and gave it to him in a jewelled cup. Without
drinking from it he took the jewel from his neck and put it in his mouth
and spat it into the vessel, and it clung to the vessel. So the maidens
took the vessel and the jewel clinging to it into the palace to their
mistress. And they told her that a beautiful young man was sitting in the
cassia tree by the well.

The Sea Deity then went out himself and recognized the young man as Prince
Fire-Subside. He brought him into the palace, spread rugs for him to sit
on, and made a banquet for him. He gave him his daughter in marriage, and
he abode there three years.

At last one morning his daughter reported to the Sea Deity that Prince
Fire-Subside, although he had passed three years without a sigh, yet last
night he had heaved one deep sigh. The Sea Deity asked him why he sighed.
Then Prince Fire-Subside told him about his difficulty with his brother,
and how he would accept no compensation for his lost fish-hook, but
demanded the return of the original. Thereupon the Sea Deity summoned
together all the fishes of the sea and asked them if any one of them had
swallowed this hook. And all the fishes said that the _tai_ had complained
of something sticking in its throat, and doubtless that was the lost hook.
The throat of the _tai_ therefore being examined, the hook was found and
given to Prince Fire-Subside.

Then the Sea Deity dismissed him to his own country, and gave him two
jewels, a flow-tide jewel and an ebb-tide jewel. And he set him on the
head of an immense crocodile and bade the crocodile convey him carefully
and come back and make a report. And Prince Fire-Subside gave the
recovered ho