“I have a task for you, my lover.  Show me to-morrow morning the last lips I kiss to-night or you lose your head.”

Then the Prince, who by this time was head over ears in love, said tenderly, “If you will kiss none but mine, I will.”  Now the beauteous lady, for all she was possessed by seven devils, could not but see that the Prince was a very handsome young man; so she blushed a little, and said: 

“That is neither here nor there:  you must show me them, or death is your portion.”

So the Prince went to his bed, sorrowful as before; but Jack put on the cap of knowledge and knew in a moment all he wanted to know.

Thus when, in the dead of the night, the beauteous lady called on her familiar spirit to take her to Lucifer himself, Jack in his coat of darkness and his shoes of swiftness was there before her.

“Thou hast betrayed me once,” said the beauteous lady to Lucifer, frowning, “by letting go my handkerchief.  Now will I give thee something none can steal, and so best the Prince, King’s son though he be.”

With that she kissed the loathly demon full on the lips, and left him.  Whereupon Jack with one blow of the rusty sword of strength cut off Lucifer’s head, and, hiding it under his coat of darkness, brought it back to his master.

Thus next morning when the beauteous lady, with malice in her beautiful eyes, asked the Prince to show her the lips she had last kissed, he pulled out the demon’s head by the horns.  On that the seven devils, which possessed the poor lady, gave seven dreadful shrieks and left her.  Thus the enchantment being broken, she appeared in all her perfect beauty and goodness.

So she and the Prince were married the very next morning.  After which they journeyed back to the court of King Arthur, where Jack the Giant-Killer, for his many exploits, was made one of the Knights of the Round Table.

V

This, however, did not satisfy our hero, who was soon on the road again searching for giants.  Now he had not gone far when he came upon one, seated on a huge block of timber near the entrance to a dark cave.  He was a most terrific giant.  His goggle eyes were as coals of fire, his countenance was grim and gruesome; his cheeks, like huge flitches of bacon, were covered with a stubbly beard, the bristles of which resembled rods of iron wire, while the locks of hair that fell on his brawny shoulders showed like curled snakes or hissing adders.  He held a knotted iron club, and breathed so heavily you could hear him a mile away.  Nothing daunted by this fearsome sight, Jack alighted from his horse and, putting on his coat of darkness, went close up to the giant and said softly:  “Hullo! is that you?  It will not be long before I have you fast by your beard.”

[Illustration:  Seated on a huge block of timber near the entrance to a dark cave]