He took a quick step in the direction of the castle and found himself soaring over it; turned eleven miles off and stepped back a pace; overshot it again, and arrived at the very feet of the Princess.

“His head!” said Beauty eagerly.

“I—­I must have dropped it,” said Charming, hastily pretending to feel for it.  “I’ll just go and—­” He stepped off in confusion.

Eleven miles the wrong side of the castle, Charming sat down to think it out.  It was but two hours to sundown.  Without his magic boots he would get to the castle too late.  Of course, what he really wanted to do was to erect an isosceles triangle on a base of eleven miles, having two sides of twenty-one miles each.  But this was before Euclid’s time.

However, by taking one step to the north and another to the south-west, he found himself close enough.  A short but painful walk, with his boots in his hand, brought him to his destination.  He had a moment’s natural hesitation about making a first call at the castle in his stockinged feet, but consoled himself with the thought that in life-and-death matters one cannot bother about little points of etiquette, and that, anyhow, the giant would not be able to see him.  Then, donning the magic cloak, and with the magic sword in his hand, he entered the castle gates.  For an instant his heart seemed to stop beating, but the thought of the Princess gave him new courage....

The Giant was sitting in front of the fire, his great spiked club between his knees.  At Charming’s entry he turned round, gave a start of surprise, bent forward eagerly a moment, and then leant back chuckling.  Like most overgrown men he was naturally kind-hearted and had a simple humour, but he could be stubborn when he liked.  The original affair of the tortoise seems to have shown him both at his best and at his worst.

“Why do you walk like that?” he said pleasantly to Charming.  “The baby is not asleep.”

Charming stopped short.

“You see me?” he cried furiously.

“Of course I do!  Really, you mustn’t expect to come into a house without anything on your feet and not be a little noticeable.  Even in a crowd I should have picked you out.”

“That miserable dwarf,” said Charming savagely, “swore solemnly to me that beneath this cloak I was invisible to the eyes of my enemies!”

“But then we aren’t enemies,” smiled the Giant sweetly.  “I like you immensely.  There’s something about you—­directly you came in ...  I think it must be love at first sight.”

“So that’s how he tricked me!”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t really like that.  The fact is you are invisible beneath that cloak, only—­you’ll excuse my pointing it out—­there are such funny bits of you that aren’t beneath the cloak.  You’ve no idea how odd you look; just a head and two legs, and a couple of arms....  Waists,” he murmured to himself, “are not being worn this year.”