Jack, now recovered from his fright, was a spectator of this scene and laughed long and loud. “What a curious result my crying ‘Balten, pour!’ had,” he thought, and he returned home.
More than a year passed and neither Jack nor Balten had met the famous wolf.
The time came when Jack had to take the little pig, now well fattened, to market. After selling it, he was on his way home, when he was attacked by robbers. They stole his money and knocked him about. Not satisfied with this, they put him into an empty barrel, which they found by the roadside, and nailed down the lid.
Poor Jack was now a prisoner and could not imagine how he could ever hope to escape. There was only one aperture, through which he could hardly squeeze his hand.
THEY PUT HIM INTO AN EMPTY BARREL
However, he did not despair. “Time cures everything,” he thought; “I have been in greater danger!”
For several hours he was thinking and meditating in the barrel. Suddenly he heard a sniff quite close to him. He looked out and saw the wolf, the famous wolf with scars on his back!
Jack watched him, and as soon as the animal’s tail was within his reach, he seized it through the hole in the barrel and cried as loud as ever he could:
“Balten, pour! Balten, pour!”