"Very well," she said; "I am the enemy, and your god dies by my hand." And quickly, even before she had quite uttered these words, she drew her poniard and with it pierced the head of the snake, so that the weapon ran into its chest and transfixed it.
The priests gave a common cry, and the King seized the Princess by both arms, and pulled her back.
"My child, my child!" he cried, "what have you done?"
"What you, my father, ought long since to have done," she replied. "Will you all believe," she called aloud to the spectators, "that I have done right in killing this snake, if I tell you what you will find within it?"
After a short pause, the King answered, "Yes, certainly." And the people cried, "Then is the snake rightly slain—it was no god."
The priests said to the King, "She shall tell us; but we will accuse her of its death if she does not speak truth."
The Princess cried with a firm voice, "Let it be so; I promise them."
The King bowed consent.
Then she said, "There is a man among us whose wife sits at home weeping and bewailing, for she had a beautiful little boy, eighteen months old, who often ran about the streets. This child did not return home yesterday: it was taken to the snake's temple, and the priests know where it is. Let the man step forward and seek his child in the snake's belly."
While she was speaking, a deep silence reigned around; but now a man broke forth from the crowd, and said, "It is true; I am the man. My beautiful boy, my Hamed, has not returned, and my wife sits at home and weeps. I left her, for I could not bear to hear her lament."