Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu/124

120 have done; and when I thought ﬁt, I tore them in pieces; and so within ten days I will do you. Get you down to your den again: and with that he beat them all the way thither. They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in a lamentable case, as before. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her husband the giant were got to bed, they began to renew their discourse of their prisoners; and, withal, the old giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor counsel bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied—I fear, said she, that they live in hopes that some will come to relieve them, or that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape. And sayest thou so, my dear? said the giant; I will therefore search them in the morning.

Well, on Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day.

Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this passionate speech:—What a fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle. Then said Hopeful, That's good news, good brother; pluck it out of thy bosom and try.

Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon~door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door ﬂew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that: door also. After that, he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too. But that look went desperately hard; yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate as it opened made such a creaking that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits-took him again, so that he could by no