dder, she ascended, and finding the wood already split
she began to suspect it was her own daughter who had given her this
check. At the third day, in order to make a third trial, she told the
Prince to clean out for her a cistern which held a thousand casks of
water, for she wished to fill it anew, adding that if the task were not
finished by the evening she would make mincemeat of him. When the old
woman went away Nardo Aniello began again to weep and wail; and
Filadoro, seeing that the labours increased, and that the old woman had
something of the brute in her to burden the poor fellow with such tasks
and troubles, said to him, "Be quiet, and as soon as the moment has
passed that interrupts my art, before the Sun says I am off,' we will
say good-bye to this house; sure enough, this evening my mother shall
find the land cleared, and I will go off with you, alive or dead." The
Prince, on hearing this news, embraced Filadoro and said, "Thou art the
pole-star of this storm-tossed bark, my soul! Thou art the prop of my
hopes."

Now, when the evening drew nigh, Filadoro having dug a hole in the
garden into a large underground passage, they went out and took the way
to Naples. But when they arrived at the grotto of Pozzuolo, Nardo
Aniello said to Filadoro, "It will never do for me to take you to the
palace on foot and dressed in this manner. Therefore wait at this inn
and I will soon return with horses, carriages, servants, and clothes."
So Filadoro stayed behind and the Prince went on his way to the city.
Meantime the ogress returned home, and as Filadoro did not answer to
her usual summons, she grew suspicious, ran into the wood, and cutting
a great, long pole, placed it against the window and climbed up like a
cat. Then she went into the house and hunted everywhere inside and out,
high and low, but found no one. At last she perceived the hole, and
seeing that it led into the open air, in her rage she did not leave a
hair upon her head, cursing her daughter and the Prince, and praying
that at the first kiss Filadoro's lover should receive he might forget
her.

But let us leave the old woman to say her wicked curses and return to
the Prince, who on arriving at the palace, where he was thought to be
dead, put the whole house in an uproar, every one running to meet him
and crying, "Welcome! welcome! Here he is, safe and sound, how happy we
are to see him back in this country," with a thousand other words of
affection. But