He says, “No, no; the devil may carry off this old woman, if he likes, but I will not go there any more.”
But, as he was cured next day by giving him that good drink again, he sets off. He dresses himself in a shirt without arms, and in an old torn pair of trousers, and goes to the old woman’s, saying that his ship is wrecked on the shore, that he has been wandering about for forty-eight hours, and he begs her to let him go to the fire to light his pipe.
She says, “No.”
“Do have pity—I am so wretched; it is only a little favour I ask of you.”
“No, no, I was deceived yesterday.”
But the man answered, “All the world are not deceivers. Don’t be afraid.”
The old woman rises to go to the fire, and as she stoops to take it,[29] the man seizes the flint and escapes, running as if he would break his feet. But the old woman runs as fast as our runner; but she only catches him as he is jumping into the ship; she tears off the shirt, and the skin of his neck and back with it, and he falls into the ship.
The captain goes directly to the serpent: “We have got the flint.”
He says to him, “I know it.”
He gives him the medicine and the good drink, in order that the man may be cured by the morrow, and that he may go again. But the man says, “No,” that he does not want to see that red-eyed old woman any more. They tell him that they still want the tinder-box. The next day they give him the good drink. That gives him courage, and the desire to return again.