This time Eligio followed his instructions implicitly, and got back to the town just in time to present the magician with the phœnix-bird before the expiring of his three days’ grace. The magician was surprised indeed to find he had been successful, but could not recall his word, so he was forced to pronounce him free; and Eligio immediately repaired to the Dove-Maiden to thank her for her succour, and to ask what was next to be done to set her free too, that they might go away together to Christian lands, and live for each other in holy union.
“As for me,” replied the maiden, blushing, “I shall be free by virtue of your freedom when you have performed one trial well, and without altering according to your own ideas the directions prescribed for you. And now the first thing is, to obtain the release of my dear nurse from the horrid form in which the magician has disguised her. To keep her in that shape, she is forced to eat a live mouse every week; and as nothing else is given her that she can eat, and as she is very ravenous by the time the week comes round, she is forced to eat the mouse. But if the mouse be killed by a sword consecrated to Christian chivalry, and it is dead before she eats it, the spell will be broken, and she will resume her natural form.”
Eligio said this was an easy matter. She had only to tell him on what day the feeding took place, and where.
“It has its difficulties, too,” replied the Dove-Maiden; “for if any blood of the mouse be spilt, the magician will know that I have instructed you, and he will play us some bad turn. To prevent this, you must cut the mouse in two by drawing your sword towards you; then all the blood will be caught on the sword, and you must make the rat lick it off afterwards.” Then she showed him where the mouse was brought, and told him to be on the watch at sunset that very night.
Sunset accordingly found Eligio in close watch, his sword ready in his hand. But he thought, “As for how to use a sword, my pretty Dove-Maiden knows nothing about that. Who ever heard of drawing a sword towards one? Why, if any one saw me they would laugh, and say, ‘Take care of your legs!’ I know how to cut a mouse in two so quickly that no blood shall be spilt; and that’s all that matters.” So, you see, he would do it his own way; and the consequence was that three drops of blood were spilt on the ground However, the white rat got a dead mouse to eat instead of a live one, and immediately appeared in her proper woman’s form.
When Eligio went to visit the Dove-Maiden after this, she spoke no word of reproach, but she told him she knew some trouble would befall them in consequence of those three drops of blood. She could not tell what it would be: they must do their best to provide against it when the time came. The next thing he had to do was, to go by midnight to the magician’s stables under the rock, and take out thence the swiftest horse in the whole world, and he was to know it by the token that it was the thinnest horse he ever saw; its eyeballs and its ribs were all that could be seen of it; and its tail was only one hair! This he was to saddle and bring under her window; and then all three would ride away on it together.
Eligio went down into the magician’s stable under the rock by midnight, and there he saw the lean horse, with his protruding ribs and eyeballs, and whose tail was only one hair. But he said to himself, “My pretty Dove-Maiden hasn’t much experience in horseflesh; that can’t be the swiftest horse in the world. Why, it would sink to the ground with our weight alone, let alone trying to move under us! That high-couraged chestnut there, with the powerful shoulders—that is the horse to hold out against fatigue, and put miles of distance behind you! I think I know a good horse to go when I see one!” So he saddled the high-couraged chestnut, and led it under the Dove-Maiden’s window.
When she saw the stout chestnut instead of the lean horse, she could not suppress a cry of disappointment.
“What have you done?” she said. “You have left the swiftest horse in the world behind; and now the magician can overtake us, nor can we escape him!”
Eligio hung his head, and stammered out a proposal to go and change the horse. But she told him it was too late; the stable-door was only open at midnight. He could not now get in till the next night; and if they left their escape till then, the magician would find out the disenchantment of the white rat, and from that suspect their scheme; and would then surround them with such a maze of difficulties, that it would take her years to learn how to solve them; whereas she had promised St. Anthony to have nothing more to do with the books of magic, but to burn them all, and go and live with a Christian husband, far from all these things. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to start at once with their best speed, only keeping on the watch for the pursuer, who would inevitably come.