They had passed up a lantern to Kreiss, which he hung upon one of the transverse beams, and he now continued his work alone resolutely, although he was every now and then compelled to stop his nose.
His work was at last completed, and he was just about to leave this damp, pestiferous abyss, when the giant awoke, and his first sigh carried off the brave pigmy, as a gust of wind would have carried off a dry leaf from a branch, and hurled him senseless into space. He fell heavily upon the chest of the colossus.
As soon as he recovered from the shock, he looked around carefully, and saw, to his great satisfaction, that the bonds which held the giant were beyond doubt strong enough to hold him a prisoner. Then he crept cautiously all along the neck as far as his ear, and by its aid climbed up the chin, after having crossed the cheek in its whole length. When he had found a convenient restingplace, he drew himself up to his full height, and raising his feeble voice as loud as he could, he said to the giant:—
“Murderer of our brethren, you are our prisoner, and you must die! Commend your soul to God.”
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The giant tried to see the tiny being who was speaking to him so boldly, and cast down his eyes. At first he could distinguish nothing but a feeble glimmering light at the extremity of his nose; but the nose itself completely concealed the speaker.
Kreiss then advanced a few steps from the chin towards the mouth of the colossus, and the latter now perceived a kind of little man, dressed in a cloak of mouse skin, which he grandly wrapped around him, as Hercules did with the skin of the Nemean lion.