“We shall need it again to-night,” he said. He wiped his eyes and for a moment could say no more. “Yes, to-night we shall have to sew up my second daughter and offer her to the Six-Headed Serpent, him that holds captive the Moon. Otherwise the monster will devour half my kingdom, half the castle, and half the shining stones. Ai! Ai! Ai!”
But the slaves when they went to the high rock on the seashore found, not the princess’ bones, but the princess herself, sitting there with her chin in her hand, gazing down on the beach which was strewn with the fragments of the Three-Headed Serpent.
They led her back to her father and reported the marvel they had seen.
“There, O King, lies the monster on the sand with all his heads severed! So huge are the heads that it would need three men with derricks to move one of them!”
“Some unknown hero has rescued my oldest daughter!” the King cried. “Would that another might come to-night to rescue my second child likewise! But, alas! what hero is strong enough to destroy the Six-Headed Monster!”
So when evening came they sewed the second princess in the sack and carried her out to the rock.
Log and his companions saw the procession move down from the castle and they saw that the castle was again disturbed, one half of it laughing and one half weeping.
“It’s the second princess to-night,” the old woman told them. “Unless her father, the King, gives her to the Six-Headed Serpent, the Monster will come and devour half the kingdom, half the castle, and half the shining stones. He it is that holds the Moon captive and the hero that slays him will release the Moon.”
Then he whom his comrades called Six Bottles cried out:
“Here is work for me!”