And the instant the monster said that the Prince jumped out of the window, because he knew if he hesitated the Princess, who had been listening in horrified silence, would never let him be eaten to set her free.
"Ah, ha!" cried the Gallopus, smacking his twenty pairs of lips, when he saw Ting standing before him, "now I have got you." Then he burst into a roar of laughter. "I knew that story about the spider would fetch you. That's the reason I made it up."
"You made it up?" cried Ting. "Do you mean to say it wasn't true?"
With another laugh the Gallopus shook every one of his heads merrily. "Of course it wasn't true, and only a ninny like you would have believed it."
"Is that so!" cried the Princess.
And as she spoke she jumped out of the window and marched right up to the monster. "You wicked, wicked creature," she said, her cheeks flaming and her eyes sparkling like diamonds.
And as she stood there right in front of the Gallopus she looked so lovely Ting felt he would be willing to be eaten a dozen times for her sake. And as for the twenty-headed Gallopus, he blushed scarlet with confusion. Of course he had often seen the Princess at her window, but never before in the sunshine outside the castle where she was a hundred times as beautiful. So he just stared and stared with all his mouths open, and shuffled his hundred and twenty feet uneasily. And then all of a sudden his heads began to get dizzy, and he felt as though he would sink through the ground with bashfulness. And then—as the Princess, growing more dazzling every minute, advanced still closer—bing—he lost his twenty heads entirely. Bing, bing, bing—each one went off like a balloon when it bursts, and nothing remained of the dreadful Gallopus to worry about.
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried the Princess, clapping her hands. "The enchantment is broken. I am free again and you will not be eaten after all, Ting. I wonder what ever made him lose his heads that way?"
"Why," said Ting, taking her hand and liking her more than ever, "don't you know? Because if you don't, just come to the palace and look in a mirror and you will soon find out."
And when he said that the Princess tucked her arm in his and marched him off to the palace as quick as she could.