On the morrow Petit Yorge went off at eight o’clock to the Tartaro. He said to him that the serpent had still three heads to be cut off, and that he had still need of all his help. The Tartaro said to him,
“Keep quiet, keep quiet; you will conquer him.”
He gives him a new dress, finer than the others, a more spirited horse, a terrible dog,[7] a sword, and a bottle of good scented water.[8] He said to him,
“The serpent will say to you, ‘Ah! if I had a spark between my head and my tail, how I would burn you and your lady, and your horse and your dog.’ And you, you will say to him then, ‘I, if I had the good-scented water to smell, I would cut off a head from thee, the horse another, and the dog another.’ You will give this bottle to the young lady, who will place it in her bosom, and, at the very moment you shall say that, she must throw some in your face, and on the horse and on the dog as well.”
He goes off then without fear, because the Tartaro had given him this assurance. He comes then to the carriage. The young lady says to him,
“Where are you going? The serpent will be here directly. It is enough if he eats me.”
He says to her, “Open the door.”
She tells him that it is impossible; that there are twenty-one doors. This young man touches them with his sword, and they open of themselves. This young man says to her, giving her the bottle,
“When the serpent shall say, ‘If I had a spark between my head and my tail, I would burn you,’ I shall say to him, ‘If I had a drop of the good-scented water under my nose;’ you will take the bottle, and throw some over me in a moment.”
He then makes her look into his ear, and, while she is looking, he cuts off twenty-one pieces from her twenty-one dresses that she was wearing. At the same moment comes the serpent, saying, with joy,