"Oh! Heaven help you! whence have you come?" said the Princess, as she saw him. "It will surely be your death. No one can make an end of the Giant who lives here, for he has no heart in his body."
"Well! Well!" said Boots; "but now that I am here, I may as well try what I can do with him; and I will see if I can't free my brothers, who are standing
turned to stone out of doors; and you, too, I will try to save, that I will."
"Well, if you must, you must," said the Princess; "and so let us see if we can't hit on a plan. Just creep under the bed yonder, and mind and listen to what he and I talk about. But, pray, do lie still as a mouse."
So he crept under the bed, and he had scarce got well underneath it, before the Giant came.
"Ha!" roared the Giant, "what a smell of Christian blood there is in the house."
"Yes, I know there is," said the Princess, "for there came a magpie flying with a man's bone, and let it fall down the chimney. I made all the haste I could to get it out, but all one can do, the smell doesn't go off so soon."
So the Giant said no more about it, and when night came, they went to bed. After they had laid a while the Princess said:
"There is one thing I'd be so glad to ask you about, if I only dared."
"What thing is that?" asked the Giant.