When the prince saw that he would not be able to swallow any more, he brought him out of the house, and he said to the daughter and the old beggarman to follow them, and he brought the man out with him to a fine green meadow that was forenent[27] the house, and a little stream of water running through it.
He brought him to the brink of the stream, and told him to lie down on his stomach over the stream, and to hold his face over the water, to open his mouth as wide as he could, and to keep it nearly touching the water, and “wait there quiet and easy,” says he; “and for your life don’t stir, till you see what will happen to you.”
The poor man promised that he would be quiet, and he stretched his body on the grass, and held his mouth open, over the stream of water, and remained there without stirring.
The prince went backwards, about five yards, and drew the daughter and the old man with him, and the last word he said to the sick man was: “Be certain, and for your life, don’t put a stir out of you, whatever thing at all happens to you.”
The sick man was not lying like that more than a quarter of an hour, when something began moving inside of him, and he felt something coming up in his throat, and going back again. It came up and went back three or four times after other. At last it came to the mouth, stood on the tip of his tongue, but frightened, and ran back again. However, at the end of a little space, it rose up a second time, and stood on his tongue, and at last jumped down into the water. The prince was observing him closely, and just as the man was going to rise, he called out: “Don’t stir yet.”
The poor man had to open his mouth again, and he waited the same way as before; and he was not there a minute until the second one came up the same way as the last, and went back and came up two or three times, as if it got frightened; but at last, it also, like the first one, came up to the mouth, stood on the tongue, and when it felt the smell of the water below it, leaped down into the little stream.
The prince said in a whisper: “Now the thirst’s coming on them; the salt that was in the beef is working them; now they’ll come out.” And before the word had left his mouth, the third one fell, with a plop, into the water; and a moment after that, another one jumped down, and then another, until he counted five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
“There’s a dozen of them now,” said the prince; “that’s the clutch; the old mother didn’t come yet.”
The poor sick man was getting up again, but the prince called to him: “Stay as you are; the mother didn’t come up.”