“You must kill a terrible wolf which is in the forest, and inside him is a fox, in the fox is a pigeon; this pigeon has an egg in his head, and whoever should strike me on the forehead with this egg would kill me.[10] But who will know all that? Nobody.”
The princess said to him, “Nobody, happily. I, too, I should die.”
The monster goes out as before, and the ant too, as you may think, happy in knowing the secret. On the very next day he sets out for the forest. He sees a frightful wolf. He says, directly, “Jesus, wolf!” and he immediately becomes a wolf. He then goes to this wolf, and they begin to fight, and he gets him down and chokes him. He leaves him there, and goes off to the young lady in the island, and says to her:
“We have got the wolf; I have killed him, and left him in the forest.”
The monster comes directly afterwards, saying:
“Ay! ay! ay! my head! Strike my head quickly.”
She hits his head till she is tired. He says to the princess:
“They have killed the wolf; I do not know if anything is going to happen to me. I am much afraid of it.”
“You have nothing to be afraid of. To whom could I have told anything? Nobody can get in here.”
When he has gone, the ant goes to the forest. He opens the wolf, and out of him comes a fox, who escapes at full speed. Malbrouk says, “Jesus, dog!” and he becomes a dog. He, too, sets off running, and catches the fox. They begin to fight, and he kills him, too. He opens him, and there comes out of him a pigeon. Malbrouk says, at once, “Jesus, hawk!” and he becomes a hawk. He flies off to catch the pigeon, seizes him in his terrible talons, and takes out of his head this precious egg, and goes proudly with it into the chamber of the young lady. He tells how he has very happily accomplished his business, and says to her: