"Upon my word," cried he, "I thought I had seen wonders before to-day--hydras with nine heads, stags with golden horns, six-legged men, three-headed dogs,
giants with furnaces in their stomachs, and nobody knows what besides.
To his dismay and astonishment he found a
Giant lying at the entrance of the wood; he was about to run off as fast as his legs could carry him, when the
Giant called out: 'Don't be afraid, I won't harm you.
'Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the
giants.' Then he bounded into the forest and looked about right and left.
'Once make a
giant common and
giants will never draw again.
It was a brief but splendid spectacle, that of this
giant, pale, bloody, his countenance lighted by the fire of the match burning in surrounding darkness!
"My own garden is my own garden," said the
Giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.
"How heartless!" wailed the
Giant, shaking the bars again.
When at last we came to ourselves the
giant sat examining us attentively with his fearful eye.
Meantime the
giant continued to raise his iron mallet high in the air and to strike the path terrific blows that echoed through the mountains like the roar of a cannon.
Towards the Knight, so weak that he could scarcely hold his sword, this
Giant came stalking.
The
giant's face was getting red, and his breath came snorting forth like a bull's.
With clenched fists, and tight set jaws the great, soulless
giant moved across the dark chamber with the stealthy noiselessness of a tiger.