“How soon will your work be done, and mine also, good snake? Make haste, I pray, that I may find my way into the castle, and return to my Princess.”
So the days passed. Each morning the old man awoke Michael and gave him food, and set him to work, and all day he laboured hard. Then when night approached, he called “Enough,” and beckoning him into the hut, gave him plenty to eat and drink, but never ate himself, and beside that one word never spoke, but crouched all day beside the snake, with closed eyes as if asleep.
Meantime, the doors of the castle never opened, and no one was seen going in, or coming out; but sometimes, towards night, strange noises might be heard from within its walls; sometimes there were wails and moans, which it filled Michael with horror to hear, and sometimes there was sweet singing, so sweet that it drew tears to his eyes.
But the days passed, and the serpent never moved from its eggs, and Michael’s heart began to be oppressed with fear, lest the old man was deceiving him, and they should never be hatched at all. As each day passed, he put aside a stone on a bare rock, and one day when he counted over the stones to see how many days were gone, he found that more than a year had passed since his boat had brought him to the shore. His hands had grown hard and brown and cracked, with working at the heavy stones, and his face and neck were blistered and sunburnt with the fierce sun that beat upon them as he worked. His clothes were cut and torn and soiled, and yet he seemed to be no nearer entering the castle. Then he rose and went into the cottage, and looked longingly at the sword which hung high up, on the walls, and raised his arms to try and reach it, but the chains held him down, and as he turned from it in despair he saw the old man standing in the doorway watching him with his cold dull eyes.
“What would you do here?” he asked; “have I not bid you serve me till the serpent’s eggs are hatched, and then the sword shall be yours?”
“And when will the serpent’s eggs be hatched?” cried Michael in despair.
“That,” said the old man, “I cannot tell, but a bargain is a bargain; keep you your part and I will keep mine.” Then he turned again to where the serpent lay, and lying down beside it closed his eyes, and Michael returned to his work mournfully.
Time passed, but there came no change. Michael despaired in his heart, but he could not have escaped even if he would, because of the chains which hung from his arms.
“I will work here,” he said, “till the seven years are out, then I will climb on the wall which I have built and throw myself into the sea and end my troubles.”
Sometimes at night he would take from his bosom the piece of magic glass which the wizard had given him and would gaze through it at the star which still looked a bright crimson colour.
“Why have you led me here, cruel star,” he asked sadly, “if you cannot help me more? Are you shining over my home and my Princess, and does she remember me? The seven long years will soon be passed, and they will wed her to another king, and it will be all of no avail that I have given up everything to find her heart, since I have only broken my own.”
So the time passed. Michael worked hard by day, but by night he lay and wept. One day, when the seven years had nearly worn themselves away, he bent over a pool of water, and in it saw his own form, and he saw that his hair was thin and streaked with gray, and his face furrowed and seamed, and his eyes dim with crying, also his shoulders were bowed with hard work, and his clothes, once so gorgeous, now hung mere rags upon his bent form.
“Now all is in vain,” said he, “for if even I returned to my own home no one will know me, so changed am I. I will go and kill the snake that has caused my misery, and then I will slay the old man who has deceived me.”
So he went up to the snake, who lay motionless coiled over its eggs as usual, and reached out his hand to grasp its throat, but as he did so his tears fell and dropped upon its head, and it writhed fearfully and then glided away so fast that he could not see where it went, and left the heap of gray eggs bare beneath his hand. The old man lay beside them as still as usual, and did not move or open his eyes, even when the snake glided hissing past him.
“If the snake has escaped me,” cried Michael, “then at least I can destroy the eggs;” and lifting his heel he struck them with all his might, but his foot left no mark upon them, nor even moved them from their place. They might have been made of iron, and each one nailed to the ground, so hard and firm they stood.
Michael burst out weeping afresh. “How foolish I am,” he said, “Yes, and wicked too. It is not the fault of the poor snake that its eggs are not hatched. Perhaps it is enchanted like me, and waits as patiently for them;” and he bent his head till his tears fell upon the eggs. No sooner did they touch them, than the shells broke, and the pieces fell asunder, and from each egg came a small moving thing, though what it was Michael did not see, for he leaped to his feet with a shout of joy,
