The next day, as soon as the brother had left the house, the stepsister hastened down to talk again with the robber.
“It is of no use,” said she. “He snaps the cords as easily as though there were nothing to them. To-night I will tie his thumbs together with my girdle, and if he can break that, as he did the cords, then there is nothing that will hold him.”
To this the robber agreed, so the next day, when the Prince came home, the girl asked him to let her once more tie his thumbs behind his back. “And this time,” said she, “I will tie them with my girdle.”
The lad put his hands behind him and the girl tied the thumbs together with her girdle. And now, though the Prince strained against it with all his power, he could not break it.
“Sister,” said he, laughing. “You will have to untie it, for now indeed I am held prisoner.”
“Then it is as I would have it,” cried the girl, and she threw open the cellar door and called to the robber to come forth and slay him.
No sooner did the Prince see the robber than he knew the trick that had been played against him.
“I am indeed helpless,” said he, “and if I must die, I must. But one little favor I would ask of you before I perish. Give me leave to blow three blasts upon my hunting-horn, and I will ask nothing else of you.”
That seemed a harmless favor for the Prince to ask, and neither the robber nor the girl refused him. Still they would not untie the girdle. The stepsister held the horn to his mouth, and the Prince blew upon it so strong and loud that the girl and the robber were like to have been deafened by it. Three times he blew. The first blast woke the animals where they lay sleeping, and they raised their heads and listened. At the second blast they aroused themselves and gathered at the door of the house; and at the third blast they threw themselves against the door so that locks and bars were broken, and the wood itself was splintered. Then in a moment they rushed into the room and sprang upon the robber and tore him into shreds.
They would have torn the stepsister to pieces, too, but this the Prince would not permit. “I will not kill you,” said he to the girl, “but you shall be punished.”