“Not I,” said the lad, “I will certainly go.”
The old woman said, “As soon as you place your jug in the fountain to receive the water, which oozes out only in the thickness of a hair, a heavy sleep will fall upon you, and you will remain there benumbed for seven days and nights. First, scorpions will assail you; then serpents; then beasts of prey, and at last all kinds of genii. You will surely be devoured by them.”
“Let come what may, I will go,” said the lad, and taking the two lions with him, he started for the fountain of the Water of Life.
He came to the fountain and found the water oozing out in a tiny stream. As soon as he placed his jug under it, a sound sleep overpowered his senses and he remained there benumbed for seven days and seven nights. Soon innumerable large scorpions began to attack the sleeping hero. But the lions destroyed all of them. Then thousands of terrible serpents made their appearance and assailed the lad, hissing and striking with their forked tongues. The lions, after a bloody fight, destroyed them also. Soon a whole army of voracious beasts surrounded the fountain in search of the lad. The lions, after a sanguinary strife, succeeded in destroying them also.
At the end of the seven days and nights, the lad awoke, and to his great horror saw that he was surrounded by a high wall which the lions had built of the carcasses of the beasts and serpents they had killed. The two faithful guardians were now sitting on either side of their master and were watching his every motion. The lad, seeing them stained with blood from head to foot, understood how much he owed to them in the preservation of his life. He then washed them clean with the Water of Life and taking the jug, which by that time was filled, he returned to his hostess.
“Did you bring the Water of Life?” asked the old dame.
“Yes, auntie, I did,” answered the lad, presenting her the jug full of water.
“It was not you that succeeded,” returned the old woman, “but Heaven and your faithful lions that preserved your life.”
During the night, as the lad was sleeping, the old woman poured the Water of Life into another vase, and filled the jug with common water, which the lad in the morning took to his stepmother, who drinking it said:
“O, happy! I am healed.”