But the devil went into another queen, and possessed himself of her. The fame of the two cures had spread so far that the wife was soon called in to try her powers again.
‘I really can’t,’ she pleaded; but the people said:
‘What you did for the other two you can do for this one; and, if you don’t, we will cut off your head.’
To save her head, therefore, she said, ‘Then you must shut me up in a room alone with the queen.’
So she was shut up in the room with her.
‘What! you here again!’ exclaimed the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; I positively won’t go this time; I couldn’t be better off than inside this old queen, and till you came I was perfectly happy.’
‘They threaten to take my head if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’
‘Then let them take your head, and let that be an end of it,’ replied the devil testily.
‘You are a pretty husband, indeed, to say such a speech to a wife!’ answered she in a high-pitched voice, which he knew was the foretaste of one of those terrible storms he could never resist.
Basta! she stormed so loud that she sickened him of her for good and all, and this time, to escape her, instead of possessing himself of any more kings and queens, he went straight off to Hell, and never came forth any more for fear of meeting her.