Now it began to rain and thunder and lighten in a very dreadful manner, and the river flowed over the banks.

And Hopeful groaned, “Oh that I had kept on my way.”

By this time the waters were greatly risen, so that to go back was very dangerous.  Yet they tried to go back, but it was so dark, and the flood was so high, that as they went they were nearly drowned nine or ten times, and they could not reach the stile again that night.  Wherefore at last, coming to a little shelter, they sat down, but being weary they fell asleep.  Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle, called Doubting Castle, and the owner of the castle was Giant Despair, and it was in his grounds the pilgrims were now sleeping.  Wherefore the giant, getting up early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep.  Then with a grim and surly voice he woke them, and asked them what they were doing in his grounds.  They told him they were pilgrims and had lost their way.

The giant said, “You have trampled on my ground, and slept on it, and therefore you must go along with me.”  So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they.  Also they said very little, for they knew they had done wrong.

The giant therefore drove them before him, and put them into his castle, into a very dark dungeon.  Here, then, they lay, from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread or drop of drink, or light, or any one to speak to them.  Now Giant Despair had a wife, and he told her he had taken a couple of men prisoners, because they were sleeping on his grounds.  Then she told him that, when he arose in the morning, he should beat them without mercy.

So Giant Despair got a cudgel, and went down to the dungeon and beat Christian and Hopeful fearfully, so that they could not move.  Then the giant left them, and they spent their time in sighs and bitter tears.

The next night Giant Despair again talked to his wife, and she said, “Tell your prisoners to kill themselves, for they will never escape from the dungeon.”

So when morning came, the giant went to them in a surly manner, and seeing they still ached with the stripes he had given them, he told them to poison themselves, for they would never get away from him in any other way.  But they asked the giant to let them go.  That made him so angry that he rushed on them and would have killed them, but he fell into a fit and lost for a time the use of his hand, wherefore he withdrew and left them as before.  Well, towards evening the giant went down again to the dungeon to see if his prisoners had followed his advice and poisoned themselves.  He found them alive, but because of their wounds and for want of bread and water they could do little but breathe.

Now at night the giant’s wife said:  “Take the prisoners into the castle yard to-morrow, and show them the bones and skulls of those prisoners you have already killed.  Tell them that in a week you will tear them to pieces, as you have torn your other prisoners.”