As a proof of the deadly effects caused by the diamond, the Portuguese Zacutus relates the case of a merchant’s servant who surreptitiously swallowed three rough diamonds belonging to his master. On the following day this man was seized with violent abdominal pains, all the remedies administered to him were without effect, and he soon died from the extensive internal ulceration produced by the sharp edges of the diamonds.[227] This old fancy that diamonds or diamond dust had deadly effects when swallowed is pretty well exploded by this time, little or no confirmation being afforded by the instances cited in the matter. However, quite recently it has been shown that swallowing a diamond can prove fatal to a fowl. While a prize-winning cockerel was being fondled by his proud owner, it spied a flashing diamond set in a ring on his hand, and immediately pecked out the stone and swallowed it. Not long after, the fowl died—not, however, because it was poisoned by the diamond, but because it was chloroformed to insure the speedy recovery of the stone. An old English ballad, treating of the loves of Hind Horn and Maid Rimnild, recounts that when Hind Horn, who loved and was beloved by the king’s daughter, went to sea to escape the wrath of the king, the princess gave him a ring set with seven diamonds. We are told that when far from home: One day he looked his ring upon He saw the diamond pale and wan. Hereupon, he hastened back, for the paleness of the stone was a sign the loved one was unfaithful to him. On his return, he succeeded in preventing her marriage to another, and everything ended happily.[228] In a fourteenth century MS. of the Old English romance upon which the ballad is founded, the stone in the ring is not named; in giving it Rimnild says:[229] Loke thou forsake it for no thing; The ston it is well trewe. When the ston wexeth wan Than chaungeth the thought of thi leman, Take than a newe. When the ston wexeth rede, Than have Y lorn mi maidenhed, Oghaines[230] the untrewe. In this older form of the tale, the stone either grows pale or red as a sign of misfortune. It is interesting to note that Epiphanius, writing a thousand years earlier, states that the _adamas_ of the high-priest grew red as a presage of bloodshed and defeat for the Jews. Regarding the old fancy that a serpent could not look upon an emerald without losing its sight, the Arabian gem dealer, Ahmed Teifashi, in 1242 writes as follows:[231]