So they woke very early, before it was light, and went out to get wood.[2] The husband stood up in the tree, and the wife down below in a ditch, or hole. As she stood there she saw a great white serpent glide past her. ‘Look, look!’ she cried to her husband; ‘see that great white serpent; surely there is something unnatural about it!’
‘A white serpent!’ answered her husband; ‘what nonsense! Who ever heard of such a thing as a white serpent!’
‘There it goes, then,’ said the wife; ‘you can see it for yourself.’
‘I see nothing of the kind,’ said the husband. ‘There are no serpents about Rome this many a long year; and as for a white one, such a thing doesn’t exist.’
While he spoke the serpent went through a hole in the ground. As the husband was so positive, the wife said no more, but they gathered up the wood and went home.
In the night, however, the wife had a dream. She saw an Augustinian friar, long since dead, standing before her, who said ‘Angela! (that was indeed her name) if you would do me a favour listen to me. Did you see a white serpent this morning?’
‘Yes,’ she answered; ‘that I did, though my husband said there was no such thing as a white serpent in existence.’
‘Well, if you would do me a pleasure, go back to the place where you saw the white serpent go in—not where he came out, but where you saw him go into the earth. Dig about that place, and, when you have dug a pretty good hole, a dead man will start up;[3] but don’t be afraid, he can’t hurt you, and won’t want to hurt you. Take no notice of him, and go on digging, and no harm will come to you; you have nothing to be afraid of. If you dig on you will come to a heap of money. Take some of the biggest pieces of gold and carry them to St. Peter’s, and take some of the smaller pieces and carry them to S. Agostino,[4] and let masses be said for that dead man. But you must tell no one alive anything about it.’
The woman was much too frightened to do what the friar had said, but she managed to keep the story to herself, though it made her look so anxious her husband could not help noticing something.
The next night the friar came again, and said the same words, only he added: ‘If you are so frightened, Angela, you may take with you for company a little boy, but he must not be over seven, nor under six; and what you do you must tell no one. But you have nothing to fear, for if you do as I have said no one can harm you.’