The
mother and daughter received this stranger with great civility, for
he appeared to them to be the son of a nobleman. In the richness of
his dress he was unexcelled by his rivals. After he had been going to
Piriang's house for a few weeks, the old widow told him one day to
come prepared to be married on the following Tuesday. On the Sunday
before the wedding-day he had a long conversation with Piriang. He
calmly asked her to take off the cross that she had about her neck,
for it made her look ugly, he said. She refused to do so, however,
because she had worn this cross ever since she was a child. After he
had departed, Piriang told her mother what he had asked her to do.

The next day the mother went to the church. She told the priest that
Piriang's bridegroom had ordered her to take off her cross from her
neck. The priest said that that man was a devil; for no man, as a son
of God, would say that a cross made the one who wore it look ugly. The
priest gave the mother a small image of the Virgin Mary. He instructed
her to show the image to the bridegroom. If when he beheld it he turned
his back on her as she was holding it, she was to tie him around the
neck with her cintas. [73] Then she was to put him in a large jar,
and bury him at least twenty-one feet under the ground.

The mother went home very much distressed because she had allowed her
daughter to become engaged to a devil. She told Piriang not to talk
with her bridegroom, because she feared that he was a devil. That
night he came with his friend dressed like him. The mother was very
gracious to them. They talked about the wedding. When the old woman
held up the image of the Virgin Mary, the two men turned their backs
on her. She immediately wound her cintas around the neck of her
daughter's bridegroom, and Piriang came in with the dried tail of
a sting-ray in her right hand. She whipped him with this as hard as
she could. [74] Then the two together forced him to get into a large
jar. After warning him not to come back to earth again, the old woman
covered the jar with a piece of cloth wet with holy water. The other
devil suddenly disappeared.

The next morning a guachinango [75] happened to pass by the house of
the old woman. She called him in, showed him the jar, and told him
to bury it at least twenty-one feet deep. When he asked how much she
would pay him, she promised to give him ten pesos. He agreed: so,
putting the jar on his right shoulder, he set o