‘And what is the price, good pilgrim, say?’ answered the queen.
‘My price is that the queen herself take me down to the palace garden and show me the whale which I know there is in the fish-pond.’[7]
‘That is a condition easily accepted,’ answered Albina. ‘I will take you there at once, good woman.’
The queen and the pretended pilgrim then went down together to the pond. The pretended pilgrim no sooner came in sight of the whale than she touched the water with her rod and bade the whale swallow the queen. The whale obeyed the stroke of the wand imparted through the water, and the stepmother went up and threw herself on the queen’s bed. When she had well wrapped herself in the coverlets so as to be hidden, she called the maids to her and bid them tell the king that the queen was sick. The king immediately came in all haste to assure himself of the state of the queen. ‘I am ill indeed, very ill!’ cried the pretended queen, groaning between whiles; ‘and there is no hope for me, for there is only one remedy for my malady, and that I cannot take.’
‘Tell me the one remedy at least,’ said the king.
‘The one only remedy for me is the blood of the viceroy, and that I could not take.’
‘It is a dreadful remedy indeed,’ said the king; ‘but if it is the only thing to save your life, I must make you take it.’
‘Oh, no! I could not take it!’ exclaimed the pretended queen, for the sake of appearing genuine.
But the king, bent on saving her life at any price, sent and had the viceroy taken possession of and secured, ready to be slain,[8] in one of the lower chambers of the palace. The windows of this chamber looked out upon the fish-pond.
The viceroy looked out of the window on to the fishpond, and immediately there came a voice up to him, speaking out of the whale, and saying, ‘Save me, my brother, for here am I imprisoned in the whale, and behold two children are born to me.’