Then they piled up into the other scale as many of the sacks of ducats sealed with the seal of Onucz as were necessary to establish an absolute equipoise between the two scales, and then while both the girl and the gold, balancing each other were floating in the air, old Onucz, his face beaming with triumph, poked Fatia Negra in the side with his elbows and said: "And now all that is yours." The adventurer rushed to the weighing-machine, not indeed to the scale on which the gold was, but to where the girl stood and lifted her down on his arm as if she were a child.

The other scale, losing its balance, rushed earthwards and the sacks filled with gold ducats toppled off it left and right.
At this the company was delighted.

Fatia Negra's manly tenderness was appreciated by everyone and old Onucz, radiant with joy, turned towards his cronies: "You see it is not my money but my daughter that he is after!" And yet if Fatia Negra had only been able to foresee what was about to happen the next instant, if only he had been able to guess what would happen during the first few moments of the first approaching quarter of an hour, could he but have heard one step, one bump which might have told him what was going on just then above his head, instead of extending his hands towards the girl, he would have done much more wisely if he had grasped in each hand one of the sacks lying on the other scale and made off with it somewhere through that dark corridor which nobody knew of but he himself, under the special protection of the devil.

Just now, however, the devil was evidently not looking after him as carefully as usual, for he returned to the altar with the girl in his arms and deposited his load on the altar steps.

The girl knelt down.
"Strew over her corn moistened with honey!" whispered old Onucz to the bridesmaids;--he considered this old custom as of the highest importance.