Page:History of Jack and the giants (3).pdf/16

 club lying by his side, waiting as he supposed, for his brother's return with his cruel prey; his gogle eyes appeared like terrible flames of fire, his countenance grim and ugly, and his cheeks appeared like a couple of large and fat flitches of baken; moreover, the bristles of his beard seemed to resemble rods of iron wire, his locks hung down upon his broad shoulders like curled snakes or hissing adders.

Jack alighted from his horse, and put him into a thicektthicket [sic], then with his coat of darkness he came somewhat near to behold the figure, and said softly, Oh! are you there? It will not be long e're I shall take you by the beard. The Giant all this time could not see him by reason of his invisible coat, so coming up close to him, valiant Jack fetching a blow at his head with his sword of sharpness, and missing somewhat of his aim, cut off the Giant's nose, whose nostrils were wider than a pair of jack-boots; the pain was terrible, and so he put up his hand to feel for his nose, and when he could not find it, he raved and roared out louder than claps of thunder; and though he turned up his large eyes he could not see from whence the blow came which had done him that great disaster; nevertheless, he took up his iron knotted club, and began to lay about him like one stark mad. Nay, quoth Jack, if thou be for that sport, then I will dispatch you quickly for fear of any accidental blow falling out. Then as the Giant rose from his block, Jack makes no more ado but runs up his sword to the hilt in the Giant's fundament, where he left it sticking for a while, and stood himself a-laughing with his hands a-kim-bow to see the Giant caper and dance the canaries with the sword in his arse, crying out. He should die, he should die, with the gripping of his guts. Thus did the Giant continue raving for an hour or more, and at length fell dead, whose dreadful fall had like to have crushed poor Jack, had he not been nimble enough to have avoided the same.