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Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia, a fiction by Andrew Lang |
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CHAPTER VIII. The Giant who does not know when he has had Enough |
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_ CHAPTER VIII. The Giant who does not know when he has had Enough {146} One morning the post brought a truly enormous letter for Dick. It was as broad as a table-cloth, and the address was written in letters as long as a hoop-stick. "I seem to know that hand," said Ricardo; "but I thought the fingers which held the pen had long been cold in death." He opened, with his sword, the enormous letter, which was couched in the following terms: "The Giant as does not know when he has had enuf , presents his compliments to Prince Ricardo; and I, having recovered from the effects of our little recent rally , will be happy to meet you in the old place for a return-match. I not being handy with the pen, the Giant hopes you will excuse mistakes and bad writing." Dick simply gazed with amazement. "If ever I thought an enemy was killed and done for, it was that Giant," said he. "Why, I made mere mince-collops of him!" However, he could not refuse a challenge, not to speak of his duty to rid the world of so greedy and odious a tyrant. Dick, therefore, took the usual things (which the king had secretly restored), but first he tried them--putting on the Cap of Darkness before the glass, in which he could not see himself. On second thoughts, he considered it unfair to take the cap. All the other articles were in working order. Jaqueline on this occasion followed him in the disguise of a crow, flying overhead. On reaching the cavern--a huge tunnel in the rock--where the Giant lived, Ricardo blew a blast on the horn which hung outside, and in obedience to a written notice, knocked also with a mace provided by the Giant for that purpose. Presently he heard heavy footsteps sounding along the cavern, and the Giant came out. He was above the common height for giants, and his whole face and body were seamed over with little red lines, crossing each other like tartan. These were marks of encounters, in which he had been cut to bits and come together again; for this was his peculiarity, which made him so dangerous. If you cut off his head, he went on just as before, only without it; and so about everything else. By dint of magic, he could put his head on again, just as if it had been his hat, if you gave him time enough. On the last occasion of their meeting, Ricardo had left him in a painfully scattered condition, and thought he was done for. But now, except that a bird had flown away with the little finger of his left hand and one of his ears, the Giant was as comfortable as anyone could be in his situation. "Mornin' sir," he said to Dick, touching his forehead with his hand. "Glad to see you looking so well. No bad feeling, I hope, on either side?" "None on mine, certainly," said Ricardo, holding out his hand, which the Giant took and shook; "but Duty is Duty, and giants must go. The modern world has no room for them." "That's hearty," said the Giant; "I like a fellow of your kind. Now, shall we toss for corners?" "All right!" said Dick, calling "Heads" and winning. He took the corner with the sun on his back and in the Giant's face. To it they went, the Giant aiming a blow with his club that would have felled an elephant. Dick dodged, and cut off the Giant's feet at the ankles. "First blood for the prince!" said the Giant, coming up smiling. "Half- minute time!" He occupied the half-minute in placing the feet neatly beside each other, as if they had been a pair of boots. Round II. --The Giant sparring for wind, Ricardo cuts him in two at the waist. The Giant folded his legs up neatly, like a pair of trousers, and laid them down on a rock. He had now some difficulty in getting rapidly over the ground, and stood mainly on the defensive, and on his waist. Round III. --Dick bisects the Giant. Both sides now attack him on either hand, and the feet kick him severely. "No kicking!" said Dick. "Nonsense; all fair in war!" said the Giant. But do not let us pursue this sanguinary encounter in all its horrible details . Let us also remember--otherwise the scene would be too painful for an elegant mind to contemplate with entertainment--that the Giant was in excellent training, and thought no more of a few wounds than you do of a crack on the leg from a cricket-ball. He well deserved the title given him by the Fancy, of "The Giant who does not Know when he has had Enough." * * * * * The contest was over; Dick was resting on a rock. The lists were strewn with interesting but imperfect fragments of the Giant, when a set of double teeth of enormous size flew up out of the ground and caught Ricardo by the throat! In vain he strove to separate the teeth, when the crow, stooping from the heavens, became the Princess Jaqueline, and changed Dick into a wren--a tiny bird, so small that he easily flew out of the jaws of the Giant and winged his way to a tree, whence he watched the scene. But the poor Princess Jaqueline! To perform the feat of changing Dick into a bird she had, of course, according to all the laws of magic, to resume her own natural form! There she stood, a beautiful, trembling maiden, her hands crossed on her bosom, entirely at the mercy of the Giant! No sooner had Dick escaped than the monster began to collect himself ; and before Jaqueline could muster strength to run away or summon to her aid the lessons of the Fairy Paribanou, the Giant who never Knew when he had Enough was himself again. A boy might have climbed up a tree (for giants are no tree-climbers, any more than the grizzly bear), but Jaqueline could not climb. She merely stood, pale and trembling. She had saved Dick, but at an enormous sacrifice, for the sword and the Seven- league Boots were lying on the trampled grass. He had not brought the Cap of Darkness, and, in the shape of a wren, of course he could not carry away the other articles. Dick was rescued, that was all, and the Princess Jaqueline had sacrificed herself to her love for him. The Giant picked himself up and pulled himself together, as we said, and then approached Jaqueline in a very civil way, for a person of his breeding, head in hand. "Let me introduce myself," he said, and mentioned his name and titles. "May I ask what you are doing here, and how you came?" Poor Jaqueline threw herself at his feet, and murmured a short and not very intelligible account of herself. "I don't understand," said the Giant, replacing his head on his shoulders. "What to do with you, I'm sure I don't know. ' Please don't eat me ,' did you say? Why, what do you take me for? I'm not in that line at all; low, I call it!" Jaqueline was somewhat comforted at these words, dropped out of the Giant's lips from a considerable height. "But they call you 'The Giant who does not Know when he has had Enough,'" said Jaqueline. "And proud of the title: not enough of fighting. Of punishment I am a glutton, or so my friends are pleased to say. A brace of oxen, a drove of sheep or two, are enough for me," the Giant went on complacently, but forgetting to mention that the sheep and the oxen were the property of other people. "Where am I to put you till your friends come and pay your ransom?" the Giant asked again, and stared at Jaqueline in a perplexed way. "I can't take you home with me, that is out of the question. I have a little woman of my own, and she's not very fond of other ladies; especially, she would like to poison them that have good looks." Now Jaqueline saw that the Giant, big as he was, courageous too, was afraid of his wife! "I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll hand you over to a neighbour of mine, who is a bachelor." "A bachelor giant; would that be quite proper?" said Jaqueline, trying to humour him. "He's not a giant, bless you; he's a queer fellow, it is not easy to say what he is. He's the Earthquaker, him as shakes the earth now and then, and brings the houses about people's ears." Jaqueline fairly screamed at hearing this awful news. "Hush! be quiet, do!" said the Giant. "You'll bring out my little woman, and she is not easy to satisfy with explanations when she finds me conversing with a lady unbeknown to her. The Earthquaker won't do you any harm; it's only for safe keeping I'll put you with him. Why, he don't waken, not once in fifty years. He's quite the dormouse. Turns on his bed now and then, and things upstairs get upset, more or less; but, as a rule, a child could play with him. Come on!" Then, taking Jaqueline up on one hand, on which she sat as if on a chair, he crossed a few ranges of mountains in as many strides. In front was one tall blue hill, with a flattened peak, and as they drew near the princess felt a curious kind of wind coming round her and round her. You have heard of whirlpools in water; well, this was just like a whirlpool of air. Even the Giant himself could hardly keep his legs against it; then he tossed Jaqueline up, and the airy whirlpool seized her and carried her, as if on a tide of water, always round and round in narrowing circles, till she was sucked down into the hollow hill. Even as she went, she seemed to remember the hill, as if she had dreamed about it, and the shape and colour of the country. But presently she sank softly on to a couch, in a beautifully-lighted rocky hall. All around her the floor was of white and red marble, but on one side it seemed to end in black nothing. Jaqueline, after a few moments, recovered her senses fully, and changing herself into an eagle, tried to fly up and out. But as soon as she was in the funnel, the whirlpool of air always sucking down and down, was too strong for her wings. She was a prisoner in this great gleaming hall, ending in black nothingness. So she resumed her usual form, and walking to the edge of the darkness, found that it was not empty air, but something black, soft, and strong--something living. It had no form or shape, or none that she could make out; but it pulsed with a heart. Jaqueline placed her foot on this curious thing, when a voice came, like thunder heard through a feather-bed: "Not near time to get up yet!" and then there was a snore, and the great hall rocked like a ship at sea. It was the Earthquaker! The habits of this monstrous animal are very little known, as, of course, he never comes above ground, or at least very seldom, when he makes tracks like a dry river-bed across country. We are certain that there are Earthquakers, otherwise how can we account for earthquakes? But how to tackle an Earthquaker, how to get at him, and what to do with him when you have got at him, are questions which might puzzle even King Prigio. It was not easy to have the better of an enchantress like Jaqueline and a prince like Ricardo. In no ordinary circumstances could they have been baffled and defeated; but now it must be admitted that they were in a very trying and alarming situation, especially the princess. The worst of it was, that as Jaqueline sat and thought and thought, she began to remember that she was back in her own country. The hills were those she used to see from her father's palace windows when she was a child. And she remembered with horror that once a year her people used to send a beautiful girl to the Earthquaker, by way of keeping him quiet, as you shall hear presently. And now she heard light footsteps and a sound of weeping, and lo! a great troop of pretty girls passed, sweeping in and out of the halls in a kind of procession, and looking unhappy and lost. Jaqueline ran to them. "Where am I? who are you?" she cried, in the language of her own country, which came back to her on a sudden. "We are nurses of the Earthquaker," they said. "Our duty is to sing him asleep, and every year he must have a new song; and every year a new maiden must be sent down from earth, with a new sleepy song she has learned from the priests of Manoa, the City of the Sun. Are you the new singer?" "No, I'm not ," said Jaqueline. "I don't know the priests of Manoa; I don't know any new sleepy song. I only want to find the way out." "There is no way, or we should have found it," said one of the maidens; "and, if you are the wrong girl, by the day after to-morrow they must send the right one, otherwise the Earthquaker will waken, and shake the world, and destroy Manoa, the City of the Sun." Then they all wept softly in the stillness. "Can we get anything to eat here?" asked poor Jaqueline, at last. She was beginning to be very hungry, and however alarmed she might be, she felt that dinner would not be unwelcome. The tallest of the maidens clapped her hands, and immediately a long table was spread by unseen sprites with meringues and cold chicken, and several sorts of delicious ices. We shall desert Jaqueline, who was rather less alarmed when she found that she was not to be starved, at all events, and return to Prince Ricardo, whom we left fluttering about as a little golden-crested wren. He followed the Giant and Jaqueline into the whirlpool of air as far as he dared, and when he saw her vanish down the cone of the hill, he flew straight back to Pantouflia. _ |
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