Page:Crane Italian Popular Tales.djvu/75

Rh the crown will obey you. Now enter and eat; take this bottle; the magician, you see, is about rising; hide yourself behind this door, and when he awakens he will ask you: 'What are you here for?' You will answer: 'I have come to fight you; but you must agree to take smaller horse and sword than mine, because I am smaller than you.' You will see there a fountain which will invite you to drink; do not risk it, for all the statues you see there are human beings who have become statues drinking that water; when you are thirsty drink secretly from this bottle."

With these directions the youth went and knocked at the door. Just then the magician arose and said: "What are you here for?" "I have come to fight with you." And he added what the princess had told him. The fountain invited him to drink, but he would not. They began to fight, and at the first blow the youth cut off the magician's head. He took the head and sword, and went to the princesses and said: "Get your things together, and let us go, for my brothers are still waiting at the mouth of the cistern."

Let us now return to the brothers. After they had lowered their youngest brother into the cistern, they turned around and went back to the royal palace. The king asked: "Where is your brother?" "We lost him in a wood, and could not find him." "Quick!" said the king, "go and find my son, or I will have your heads cut off." So they departed, and on their way found a man with a rope and a bell, and took them with them. When they reached the cistern, they lowered the rope with the bell, saying among themselves: "If he is alive he will hear the bell and climb up; if he is dead, what shall we do with our father?" When they lowered the rope, Salvatore made the princesses ascend one by one. As the first appeared, who was the oldest, the oldest brother said: "Oh, what a pretty girl! This one shall be my wife." When the second appeared, the other brother said: "This is mine." The youngest princess did not wish to ascend, and said to Salvatore: "You go up, Salvatore, first; if you do not, your brothers will leave you here." He said he would not; she said he