They were not long before they arrived at the horrid cave, where Benefico, proceeding directly to the monster’s chamber, suddenly appeared to him at the side of his couch. Barbarico, on seeing him, gave a hideous yell, and rolled his glaring eyes in such a manner as expressed the height of rage and envious bitterness.
Benefico, turning to all the company present, thus spoke, ‘How shall I enough praise and admire the gentle Mignon for having put in my power to justice on this execrable wretch, and freeing you all from an insufferable slavery, and the whole country from their terror?’ Then reaching the monster’s own sword, which hung over his couch, his hand yet suspended over the impious tyrant, he thus said, ‘Speak, wretch, if yet the power of speech is left thee; and with thy latest breath declare, what advantage hast thou found of all thy wicked life?’
Barbarico well knew that too bad had been that life, to leave the least room for hope of mercy; and therefore, instead of an answer, he gave another hideous yell, gnashing his horrid teeth, and again rolling his ghastly eyes on all around.
Benefico seeing him thus impenitent and sullen, lifted on high the mighty sword, and with one blow severed his odious head from his enormous body.
The whole assembly gave a shout for joy; and Benefico holding in his hand the monster’s yet grinning head, thus addressed his half-astonished companions: ‘See here, my friends, the proper conclusion of a rapacious cruel life. But let us hasten from this monster’s gloomy cave; and on the top of one of our highest mountains, fixed on a pole, will I set up this joyful spectacle, that all the country round may know themselves at liberty to pursue their rural business or amusements, without the dread of any annoyance from a devouring vile tormentor. And when his treasures, which justly all belong to the good patient Mignon, are removed, we will shut up the mouth of this abominable dwelling; and, casting on the door a heap of earth, we’ll hope, in time, that both place and remembrance of this cruel savage may in time be lost.’
Every one readily cried out, that to Benefico, the good Benefico, alone belonged the tyrant’s treasures; that Benefico should ever be, as heretofore, their governor, their father, and their kind protector.
The beneficent heart of the good giant was quite melted with this their kind confidence and dependence upon him, and assured them, he should ever regard them as his children: and now, exulting in the general joy that must attend the destruction of this savage monster, when the whole country should find themselves freed from the terror his rapine and desolation, he sent before to his castle, to give intelligence to all within that happy place of the grim monster’s fall, and little Mignon’s triumph; giving in charge to the harbinger of these tidings, that it should be his first and chiefest care to glad the gentle bosom of a fair disconsolate (who kept herself retired and pent up within her own apartment) with the knowledge that the inhuman monster was no more; and that henceforth sweet peace and rural innocence might reign in all their woods and groves. The hearts of all within the castle bounded with joy, on hearing the report of the inhuman monster’s death, and the deliverance of all his captives, and with speedy steps they hastened to meet their kind protector; nor did the melancholy fair one, lest she should seem unthankful for the general blessing, refuse to join the train.
It was not long after the messenger that Benefico, and those his joyful friends, arrived: but the faithful Fidus alone, of all this happy company, was tortured with the inward pangs of a sad grief he could not conquer, and his fond heart remained still captivated to a melting sorrow: nor could even the tender friendship of the gentle Mignon quite remove, though it alleviated, his sadness; but the thoughts of his loved lost amata embittered every joy, and overwhelmed his generous soul with sorrow.
When the company from the castle joined Benefico, he declared to them in what manner their deliverance was effected; and, as a general shout of joy resounded through the neighbouring mountains, Fidus, lifting up his eyes, beheld in the midst of the multitude, standing in a pensive posture, the fair disconsolate. Her tender heart was at the instant overflowing in soft tears, caused by a kind participation of their present transport, yet mixed with the deep sad impression of a grief her bosom was full fraught with. Her face, at first, was almost hid by her white handkerchief, with which she wiped away the trickling drops, which falling, had bedewed her beauteous cheeks: but as she turned her lovely face to view the joyful conquerors, and to speak a welcome to her kind protector, what words can speak the raptures, the astonishment, that swelled the bosom of the faithful youth, when in this fair disconsolate he saw his loved, his constant, his long-lost Amata! Their delighted eyes in the same instant beheld each other, and, breaking on each side from their astonished friends, they flew like lightning into each other’s arms.
After they had given a short account of what had passed in their separation, Fidus presented to his loved Amata the kind, the gentle Mignon, with lavish praises of his generous friendship, and steady resolution, in hazarding his life by disobeying the injunctions of the cruel tyrant. No sooner had Amata heard the name of Mignon, but she cried out, ‘Surely my happiness is now complete, and all my sorrows, by this joyful moment, are more than fully recompensed; for, in the kind preserver of my Fidus, I have found my brother. My mother lost her little Mignon when he was five years old; and pining grief, after some years vain search, ended her wretched life.’