And the second night he came back, and asked her again what she had seen her grandfather doing, and she answered him as before, and he broke in another door, and laughed and went away, and so each night till he reached the seventh door. Then the maiden wrote a letter to her brothers, and bound it round the neck of a pigeon, and said to it, ‘Oh, thou pigeon that served my father and my grandfather, carry this letter to my brothers, and come back at once.’ And the pigeon flew away.
It flew and it flew and it flew till it found the brothers. The eldest unfastened the letter from the pigeon’s neck, and read what his sister had written: ‘I am in a great strait, my brothers. If you do not rescue me to-night, to-morrow I shall be no longer living, for the man-eater has broken open six doors, and only the iron door is left. So haste, haste, post haste.’
‘Quick, quick! my brothers,’ cried he.
‘What is the matter?’ asked they.
‘If we cannot reach our sister to-night, to-morrow she will be the prey of the man-eater.’
And without more words they sprang on their horses, and rode like the wind.
The gate of the castle was thrown down, and they entered the court and called loudly to their sister. But the poor girl was so ill with fear and anxiety that she could not even speak. Then the brothers dismounted and passed through the six open doors, till they stood before the iron one, which was still shut. ‘Udea, open!’ they cried, ‘it is only your brothers!’ And she arose and unlocked the door, and throwing herself on the neck of the eldest burst into tears.
‘Tell us what has happened,’ he said, ‘and how the man-eater traced you here.’ ‘It is all the cat’s fault,’ replied Udea. ‘She put out my fire so that I could not cook. All about a bean! I ate one and forgot to give her any of it.’
‘But we told you so particularly,’ said the eldest brother, ‘never to eat anything without sharing it with the cat.’
‘Yes, but I tell you I forgot,’ answered Udea.