He says to him, “Fire twelve rounds more; but do not be afraid. The police will come here; they will handcuff you. You will be put in prison, and you will ask, as a favour, not to be executed before that they have visited the ship, in order to prove that there is nothing in it to merit such a chastisement.”
The captain goes on deck, and fires the twelve rounds of cannon. As soon as he has fired them, the magistrates and the police arrive; they handcuff the men, the sailors, and the captain, and they put them in prison. The sailors were not pleased; but the captain said to them:
“You will soon be delivered.”
The next day the captain asks to go and speak to the king. He is brought before the king, and the king says:
“You are condemned to be hanged.”
The captain says to him, “What! because we have fired some cannon-shots you are going to hang us!!”
“Yes, yes, because for seven years we have not heard the cannon in this city.[30] I am in mourning—I and my people. I had an only son, and I have lost him. I cannot forget him.”
The captain says to him: “I did not know either this news or this order, and I beg you not to kill us before going and seeing if there is anything in the ship which condemns us justly.”
The king goes with his courtiers, his soldiers, and his judges—in a word, with everybody. When he has mounted on deck, what a surprise! The king finds his dearly-loved son, who relates to him how he had been enchanted by an old woman, and that he remained a serpent seven years.[31] How the captain every day went to walk by the seaside, and every day left him his life, saying to him, “The good God has made you too;” and having seen the captain’s good heart, “I thought he would spare me, and it is to him that I owe my life.”
He goes to the court. The men are let out of prison, and they give the captain a large sum of money for a dowry for his two daughters, and the ship for himself. To the sailors they give as much as they like to eat and drink for all the time they wish to stop there, and afterwards enough to live upon for the rest of their lives. The king and his son lived happily, and as they had lived well, they died happily also.