Deep in the Cave of Wonders the waterfall turned out to be even more than Abis Mal had indicated. Its origin was lost in the darkness of the ceiling but as it cascaded out of the blackness it struck a ledge and broke up into a foaming, bubbling mass which poured over the ledge until it struck the next one down where it exploded into a golden spray. This continued down each ledge until it reached the bottom pool where it fell like a midsummer downpour, churning the pool into golden foam before flowing away into a dark hole in the cave walls.
She clapped her hands. "It's beautiful."
He sat on a broad rock by the pool and smiled back at her. "I thought you'd like it. This was my favorite before you came."
She looked over at him. "And now what's better than this?"
He sighed. "Being with you." He took a rock and tried to skip it across the pool. It just splashed once. He picked up a second. "I can never make these darn things skip." He tossed the rock sideways and she made a little unseen gesture and the rock skipped across the pool until it bounced off the far wall. "That's never happened before." He exclaimed. He turned to look at her. "That's what I mean. When you're with me, everything seems to work right and I'm no longer a clumsy idiot."
She shook her head. "You just have to believe in yourself. You can be so much more than you seem to be."
Suddenly the Guardian spoke. "Is he the diamond in the rough? No. He can't be as by his own admission he coveted all the wealth here and is a thief. But he seems like he could be more with which the ring genie agrees. I must observe longer." The voice died away into echoes.
Abis Mal shuddered. "I hate it when he does that."
She sat there silently staring at her hands. Maybe she could help him to be more. Abruptly she saw how. She said with a smile. "I have a great story for you. It's about a man who was underestimated by everyone and sold by his spiteful brothers into slavery but who became one of the greatest rulers in Egypt. His name was Joseph."
Abis Mal settled back and listened raptly and by the end there was a growing smile on his face.
She finished with. "There are many morals to this story and each person takes away from it what pertains to them. What do you take from it?"
Abis Mal screwed his face up in thought and then said. "Joseph was always a very intelligent man but his arrogance and pride drove his brother's to despise him so much that they wanted to kill him, just like my band of desert skunks did me, because I was intelligent and could plan out successful robberies for them, but then in my arrogance and greed I wouldn't share with them."
She nodded and a smile played about her lips. "And what does Joseph's success after he was sold into slavery in Egypt tell you about yourself?"
He considered this. "I could say he got lucky coming to the pharaoh's attention with his accurate predictions of a seven-year drought, but it was more than that, wasn't it? He used his intelligence again but this time for the benefit of others as well as himself and he'd had the arrogance beat out of him by his years of slavery so he no longer angered those around him. He'd become humble." He looked over at her and said with wonder. "I've had the arrogance beaten out of me by my imprisonment here and I'm no longer after wealth at all cost. Why I bet my band of desert skunks would actually like for me to lead them now."
"See." She said with delight. "You can grow and be much more than you used to be." And she gave him a quick hug.
"And if he does successfully grow and completes his transformation while here, then he indeed could be the 'diamond in the rough'. He really could be. I did not err in keeping him here." The Guardian declared so softly that neither one heard it as they were too busy gazing into each other's eyes.