Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/50

 28 The king acceded to his petition, gave a great banquet to the court, and Pedro on the occasion sat at the royal table. At the end of the banquet Pedro took occasion to narrate all he had heard the witches say on the night when they remained and took shelter under a shed. As he narrated the part which referred to the mule his legs began to harden into stone. As he began to recount what the second witch had said he was already turned into stone as far as his knees. The Prince seeing which asked Pedro not to continue any further to relate what he had heard the witches say, as he had already commuted the sentence of death passed upon him, satisfied of his innocence. But Pedro determined to declare all he had heard the witches say, and as he finished narrating what the last one had said he was turned completely into a marble statue. The prince, much distressed, ordered the statue of marble to be placed under the bed in his room.

At the end of the year the princess had a boy; and when the prince was once in his room, sometime after the event, alone with the child, the witch appeared and said to him, "You are a great friend and patron of Pedro, but you are not capable of killing your son and bathing the marble statue with his blood; did you do so, the marble statue would turn again into Pedro himself." The prince was in great affliction about what was required of him and his poor son, but before long he took into consideration that his son was yet very young, and that Pedro's life was more necessary, as he might yet save many lives and persons from danger; he therefore drew first a very small drop of blood from the boy's arm, and poured it over the stone. Pedro began to move! and the prince, seeing that he was alive, took courage and killed the boy. He then proceeded to bathe the statue with its blood, and immediately the stone was turned again into Pedro. When the princess returned to the room the prince told her that the little boy her son had fallen from the