“No,” answered the other Jack; “now you have said that I will not. You may go first.”
So they began to quarrel and argue about this, and it is impossible to say how long they would have gone on if they had not begun to hear a terrible and mournful sort of moaning and groaning, which frightened them both and instantly made them friends. They took tight hold of one another’s hand, and again there came by a loud sighing, and a noise of all sorts of lamentation, and it seemed to reach them through the little door.
Each of the boys would now have been very glad to go back, but neither liked to speak. At last Jack thought anything would be less terrible than listening to those dismal moans, so he suddenly dashed through the door, and the other Jack followed.
There was nothing terrible to be seen. They found themselves in a place like an immensely long stable; but it was nearly dark, and when their eyes got used to the dimness, they saw that it was strewed with quantities of fresh hay, from which curious things like sticks stuck up in all directions. What were they?
“They are dry branches of trees,” said the boy-king.
“They were table-legs turned upside down,” said Jack; but then the other Jack suddenly perceived the real nature of the thing, and he shouted out, “No; they are antlers!”
The moment he said this the moaning ceased, hundreds of beautiful antlered heads were lifted up, and the two boys stood before a splendid herd of stags; but they had had hardly time to be sure of this when the beautiful multitude rose and fled away into the darkness, leaving the two boys to follow as well as they could.
They were sure they ought to run after the herd, and they ran and ran, but they soon lost sight of it, though they heard far on in front what seemed at first like a pattering of deer’s feet, but the sound changed from time to time. It became heavier and louder, and then the clattering ceased, and it was evidently the tramping of a great crowd of men. At last they heard words, very glad and thankful words; people were crying to one another to make haste, lest the spell should come upon them again. Then the two Jacks, still running, came into a grand hall, which was quite full of knights and all sorts of fairy men, and there was the boy-king’s uncle, but he looked very pale. “Unlock the door!” they cried. “We shall not be safe till we see our new Queen. Unlock the door; we see light coming through the keyhole.”
The two Jacks came on to the front, and felt and shook the door. At last the boy-king saw a little golden key glittering on the floor, just where the one narrow sunbeam fell that came through the keyhole; so he snatched it up. It fitted, and out they all came, as you have been told.
When they had done relating their adventures, the new Queen’s health was drunk. And then they drank the health of the boy-king, who stood up to return thanks, and, as is the fashion there, he sang a song. Jack thought it the most ridiculous song he had ever heard; but as everybody else looked extremely grave, he tried to be grave too. It was about Cock-Robin and Jenny Wren, how they made a wedding feast, and how the wren said she should wear her brown gown, and the old dog brought a bone to the feast.