He gives him the medicine and the good drink, in order that the man
may be cured by the morrow, and that he may go again. But the man
says, "No," that he does not want to see that red-eyed old woman any
more. They tell him that they still want the tinder-box. The next day
they give him the good drink. That gives him courage, and the desire
to return again.
He dresses himself up as if he had been shipwrecked, and goes off
half naked. He comes to the old woman's, and asks for a little bread,
as he has not eaten for a long time, (and begs her) to have pity on
him--that he does not know where to go to.
The old woman says to him: "Be off, where you will; you shall get
nothing at my house, and nobody shall come in here. Every day I
have enemies."
"But what have you to fear from a poor man who only wants a little
bread, and who will be off immediately afterwards?"
At last the old woman rises to go to her cupboard, and our man takes
her little tinder-box. The old woman runs after him, wishing to catch
him, but our man is ahead. She overtakes him just as he is leaping into
the ship. The old woman takes hold of the skin of his neck, and tears
it all right down to the soles of his feet. Our runner falls down, and
they do not know whether he is alive or dead; and the old woman says:
"I renounce him, and all those who are in this ship."
The captain goes to the serpent, and says to him:
"We have the tinder-box, but our runner is in great danger. I do not
know whether he will live; he has no skin left from his neck to the
soles of his feet."
"Console yourselves, console yourselves, he will be cured by
to-morrow. Here is the medicine and the good drink. Now, you are
saved. Go on deck, and fire seven rounds of cannon."
He mounts on deck and fires the seven rounds of cannon, and returns
to the serpent, and says to him:
"We have fired the seven rounds."
He says to him, "Fire twelve rounds more; but do not be afraid. The
police will come here; they will handcuff you. You will be put in
prison, and you will ask, as a favour, not to be executed before that
they have visited the ship, in order to prove that there is nothing
in it to merit such a chastisement."
The captain goes on deck, and fires the twelve rounds of cannon. As
soon as he has fired them, the magistrates and the police arrive;
they handcuff the men, the sailors, and the captain, and they put them
in prison. The sailors were not pleased; but the captain said to them:
"You will soon be delivered."
The next day the captain asks to go and speak to the king. He is
brought before the king, and the king says:
"You are condemned to be hanged."
The captain says to him, "What! because we have fired some cannon-shots
you are going to hang us!!"
"Yes, yes, because for seven years we have not heard the cannon in
this city. [102] I am in mourning--I and my people. I had an only son,
and I have lost him. I cannot forget him."
The captain says to him: "I did not know either this news or this
order, and I beg you not to kill us before going and seeing if there
is anything in the ship which condemns us justly."
The king goes with his courtiers, his soldiers, and his judges--in a
word, with everybody. When he has mounted on deck, what a surprise! The
king finds his dearly-loved son, who relates to him how he had been
enchanted by an old woman, and that he remained a serpent seven
years. [103] How the captain every day went to walk by the seaside,
and every day left him his life, saying to him, "The good God has
made you too;" and having seen the captain's good heart, "I thought
he would spare me, and it is to him that I owe my life."
He goes to the court. The men are let out of prison, and they give the
captain a large sum of money for a dowry for his two daughters, and
the ship for himself. To the sailors they give as much as they like to
eat and drink for all the time they wish to stop there, and afterwards
enough to live upon for the rest of their lives. The king and his
son lived happily, and as they had lived well, they died happily also.
Gachina,
The Net-maker.