"Poor thing!" said he, and, putting his arm around her, he kissed her. What joy thrilled through Nerralina! She had never been kissed by a man before, and it did for her what such things have done for many a young lady since--it turned her head!
"Blow, horners, blow!" shouted the King. "Join hands all!"
Seizing Nerralina's hand, and followed by the Prince and Princess, who sprang from the table, he led off the five thousand couples in a grand gallopade.
The Giant stood, and laughed heartily, until, at last, being no longer able to restrain himself, he sprang into the midst of them, and danced away royally, trampling about twenty couples under foot at every jump.
"Dance away, old fellow!" shouted the King, from the other end of the room. "Dance away, my boy, and never mind the people."
And the music blew louder, and round they all went faster and faster, until the building shook and trembled from the cellar to the roof.
At length, perfectly exhausted, they all stopped, and Ting-a-ling, slipping down from the Giant's frill, went out of the door.
"O!" said he, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, "it was all so funny, and every body was so happy--that--that I almost forgot my bereavement."
Ting-a-ling, for some weeks after the death of his young companion, Ling-a-ting, seemed quite sad and dejected. He spent nearly all his time lying in a half-opened rose-bud, and thinking of the dear little creature who was gone. But one morning, the bud having become a full-blown rose, its petals fell apart, and dropped little Ting-a-ling out on the grass. The sudden fall did not hurt him, but it roused him to exertion, and he said, "O ho! This will never do. I will go up to the palace, and see if there is anything going on." So off he went to the great palace; and sure enough something was going on. He had scarcely reached the court-yard, when the bells began to ring, the horns to blow, the drums to beat, and crowds of people to shout and run in every direction, and there was never such a noise and hubbub before.
Ting-a-ling slipped along close to the wall, so that he would not be stepped on by anybody; and having reached the palace, he climbed up a long trailing vine, into one of the lower windows. There he saw the vast audience-chamber filled with people, shouting, and calling, and talking, all at once. The grand vizier was on the wide platform of the throne, making a speech, but the uproar was so great that not one word of it could Ting-a-ling hear. The King himself was by his throne, putting on the bulky boots, which he only wore when he went to battle, and which made him look so terrible that a person could hardly see him without trembling. The last time that he had worn those boots, as Ting-a-ling very well knew, he had made war on a neighboring country, and had defeated all the armies, killed all the people, torn down all the towns and cities, and every house and cottage, and ploughed up the whole country, and sowed it with thistles, so that it could never be used as a country any more. So Ting-a-ling thought that as the King was putting on his war boots, something very great was surely about to happen. Hearing a fizzing noise behind him, he turned around, and there was the Prince in the court-yard, grinding his sword on a grindstone, which was turned by two slaves, who were working away so hard and fast that they were nearly ready to drop. Then he _knew_ that wonderful things were surely coming to pass, for in ordinary times the Prince never lifted his finger to do anything for himself.