He dresses himself up as if he had been shipwrecked, and goes off half naked. He comes to the old woman’s, and asks for a little bread, as he has not eaten for a long time, (and begs her) to have pity on him—that he does not know where to go to.
The old woman says to him: “Be off, where you will; you shall get nothing at my house, and nobody shall come in here. Every day I have enemies.”
“But what have you to fear from a poor man who only wants a little bread, and who will be off immediately afterwards?”
At last the old woman rises to go to her cupboard, and our man takes her little tinder-box. The old woman runs after him, wishing to catch him, but our man is ahead. She overtakes him just as he is leaping into the ship. The old woman takes hold of the skin of his neck, and tears it all right down to the soles of his feet. Our runner falls down, and they do not know whether he is alive or dead; and the old woman says:
“I renounce him, and all those who are in this ship.”
The captain goes to the serpent, and says to him:
“We have the tinder-box, but our runner is in great danger. I do not know whether he will live; he has no skin left from his neck to the soles of his feet.”
“Console yourselves, console yourselves, he will be cured by to-morrow. Here is the medicine and the good drink. Now, you are saved. Go on deck, and fire seven rounds of cannon.”
He mounts on deck and fires the seven rounds of cannon, and returns to the serpent, and says to him:
“We have fired the seven rounds.”