Once
there was a terrible storm at sea, with lightning and thunder and wind
most foul. The king's grand longboat had spun upon the sea like a piece
of cork and finally been pulled apart.
“Hutetu!”
cried the young prince as he grabbed for a raft made of timbers, being
torn hither and yon by the deep blue sea. Just as the sea was about to
rip free his grip, the raft's sole inhabitant, a young ship's boy, an
orphan of low class, grabbed the prince's hand to save him.
The
prince pulled his hand away, refusing the filthy boy's touch, and was
thrown free by the pell mell crashing of the waves. The ship's boy
wanted to cling to the raft, but no one should drown, so he let go and
swam out to him, but the prince would have none of it.
Finally,
the ship's boy asked the Sea if she would save the prince. The Sea
being as she is, and at that moment being full of fury and candor,
screeched back, "Why ask me to save the prince, when I have taken your
captain and the sailors and the king and the vicar?”
“Because it is something I can ask. Please save him.”
The Sea said, "What a feckless fool you are. He is braggart and unworthy of me.”
“Please,” said the ship's boy as he swam back toward the raft.
“Very well,” said the Sea in annoyance, "but he shall regret it.”
And so the Sea saved two lives that day, because she could.
In
all the world, there is an island for every kind of animal where they
talk and run all the live long day as if the island were their own. And
the prince she sent to the Island of Baboons, where they eat with their
faces and snarl and scratch and are most uncivilized. And so, the prince
became a baboon.
But
the ship's boy she sent to the Island of Turtles, because turtles are
kind, as was the boy. And, anyway, the island was close, and so not
much work for her to put him there. And the sun came out, and the sky
cleared and the Sea calmed, content in her good deed, quickly forgetting
the dead souls caught deep within her bosom.
The ship's boy washed ashore, exhausted by the long ordeal, and promptly fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, two wide eyes looked down on him.
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