The king at once ordered his servants to give them what they required, and when they had got the great cable they went back to the hole. On the way, as they were going, they discussed which of the three should venture down first, and it was at last settled that the Pikeman should be let down. However, he made them solemnly promise him that they should pull him up again the instant he shook the rope.
He had been let down but a very little way before he shook the rope, and so they pulled him up as they had promised.
“They pulled him up as they had promised.”
Then the Mill-turner said, “Let me go down.” And so the other two lowered him, but in a moment or two [[67]]he shook the rope violently; and so he, too, was pulled up.
Now Peppercorn grew angry, and exclaimed, “I did not think you were such cowards as to be afraid of a dark hole! Now let me down!” So they let him down and down until his foot touched solid ground. Finding that he had reached the bottom, he looked round him, and saw that he stood just in the very middle of a most beautiful green plain—a plain so beautiful that it was a real pleasure to look on it.
At one end of the plain stood a large handsome palace, and Peppercorn went nearer to look at it. There, in the gardens, walking, he met two young girls, and asked them if they were not the daughters of the king. When they said that they were, he inquired what had become of the other sister; and the princesses told him that their youngest sister was in the palace very busy binding up the wounds that Yard-high-forehead-and-span-long-beard had lately received from a certain knight called Peppercorn.
Then Peppercorn told them who he was, and that he had come down on purpose to release them, and to take them back to the king, their father. On hearing this good news, the two princesses rejoiced greatly, and told Peppercorn where he would find Yard-high-forehead-and-span-long-beard and their youngest sister. But they warned him not to rush in on the giant, but rather to go softly, and first try to get hold of the sabre which hung on the wall over his bed, for this sabre possessed [[68]]the wonderful power of killing a man when he was a whole day’s journey from it.
Peppercorn took care to do as the princesses had told him. He stole very quietly into the room where Yard-high-forehead-and-span-long-beard was lying, and when he was near the bed he sprang up suddenly and seized the sword. The moment the wounded giant saw his sabre in the hands of Peppercorn he jumped up quickly and ran out of the palace. Peppercorn followed him some time before he remembered what the two princesses had told him of the wonderful properties of the sword, but as soon as he recollected this he made a sharp cut with it in the air, as if he were cutting off a man’s head, and the moment he did so Yard-high-forehead-and-span-long-beard fell down dead.
Then Peppercorn went back to the palace, and, taking with him the three princesses, prepared to return to the upper world.