“I hear her now,” said Hearing Ear. “She is raging, and she is cursing those who were minding the children, and let them be taken. Now she is leaving the castle; now she is racing on after us.”
“Tell us, Far Feeler, when she is coming near,” said Fin.
“She is making a terrible uproar,” said Hearing Ear.
“She is coming toward us. She is very near,” said Far Feeler.
Bowman saw her, rested his bow on the shoulder of another, aimed, and sent an arrow through the one eye in the middle of the hag’s forehead. She fell flat on the sea, and lay dead there. Fin and his small men moved forward swiftly to the castle. They arrived one hour before the end of night, and from that time till daybreak there was joy in the chamber. The small men and the two children of the king were playing together and enjoying themselves. Just before day, the king sent a servant to know what had happened in the chamber where his son was. The man could not enter, for they would not let him; but he looked through the keyhole. He went back then, and said to the king,—
“They seem to be very merry inside; and there are two lads in the room bigger than any of the small men.”
The king knew they would not be merry unless the child was there. What he did was to throw on his mantle, and go himself to see. He knocked at the door.
“Who is there?” asked Fin.
“I,—the king.”
The door was thrown open, and in walked the king. He saw the child in the cradle; but what was his wonder when he saw the other two. Without saying a word, he seized Fin’s hand and shook it; and then he thanked him.