, who is, as a rule, nearing the end of his wicked career.
Accordingly, when, in a voice of thunder, he demanded of Michele an
immediate explanation--wanted to know how he dared address the
princess--we all felt that he was putting himself in the wrong and that a
catastrophe was imminent. Giants, that is, unscrupulous people in power,
are too fond of assuming this attitude of unprovoked hostility and
overbearing insolence, but they assume it once too often. Had he
remembered Adam and Eve and the apple it might have occurred to him to
inquire whether in the present case also the lady had not begun it.
Giants, however, are for the most part unintelligent, not to say
downright stupid people, and seldom have the sense to know how to use
their power wisely--think of the giant in _Jack and the Beanstalk_, think
of Polyphemus and Ulysses, think of the Inquisition and Galileo.

And then this giant made the mistake of losing his temper, and the
further mistake of showing that he had lost it, and when giants do this,
it means that they know they are in the wrong and don't care. He
insulted Michele most grossly, and the knight very properly drew his
sword and went for him, and a terrible battle ensued throughout which
realism was thrown to the waves. The combatants rose off the ground so
high that Michele's head and the giant's head and shoulders were
frequently lost in the clouds; and they clanked down again upon the sandy
shore two or three feet in front of where they had stood--or behind, just
as it happened; and their swords banged against their breast-plates and
shields, proving that they were real metal and not merely tinsel; and
they twirled round and round like beef on a roasting-jack, until at last
Michele dealt the inevitable blow and the giant fell dead on the sand
with a thud that jolted the coast, shook the islands, rippled across the
sunset sky and restored animation to the lifeless form of the princess.

While the battle raged she had been standing by, unmoved, blankly glaring
at the audience; and yet she must have known as well as we did that it
was all about her. The probability is that her operator had temporarily
moored her to a convenient peg in the back of the clouds while he worked
the giant, and that at the conclusion of the duel he was free to return
to her. She first looked round and then swooped hurriedly across the
stage, three inches from the ground; before quite touching her protector,
however, s