“Oh, yes,” they said, “the ends of the earth!”
The dark began to come, and it was the last edge of twilight when Jack reached the great black cliff where the castle stood. He felt about, but the rock was steep and jagged whichever way he turned. So he scrambled up on his hands and knees. At the end of an hour or so he found himself, scratched and breathless, under the huge wall of the castle. In the dim starlight a few feet away he could make out an iron grating with bars as thick as tree trunks.
Inky turrets
“That is the castle gate,” thought Jack. So he beat upon it with his staff. The massive iron resounded through the dark. But when the noise died down, the castle loomed as silent as before. Jack whacked at the bars again, blow after blow, till he could hear the echoes go booming down the hall inside. There was the loud, slow grating of a lock, the opening of a great door, and a light as big and bright as the moon came swinging down the corridor, far above Jack’s head.
As soon as his eyes got through blinking, Jack looked up. The other side of the tall grating towered a man as high and wide as the palace at home; but it was not the giant Riverrath. This giant had black hair and black mustaches, and he looked down at Jack by the light of his huge lantern without saying a word.
“Good evening,” said Jack politely, doffing his hat. “Could you tell me the way to the ends of the earth and the castle of giant Riverrath?”
At that the giant’s face broke into dimples as deep as teacups. He rattled the gate open with a noise like thunder, and cried out:
“Flip-flap, flip-flap,