Carlo Magno, however, who knew that the dogs who bark most bite least, waited unmoved till he had exhausted his whole repertory of violent language, and then quite undismayed summoned him to surrender the maiden.
Another loud and angry volley followed upon this demand, with further threats of the terrible vengeance he intended to take on the intruder.
"Then," said Carlo Magno, "if you will not give her up quietly, I must even take her by force." And with that he dismounted and drew his sword. The giant saw now that he must defend his life, or he would lose it; and so, forced to fight, he drew his clumsy sword and began laying about him in right-determined fashion; but all his blows alighted far and wide of the Christian prince. Furious at finding his awkward efforts ineffectual, while the highly trained agility of the prince saved him from all his strokes, he began laying about him with such untempered violence that at last his weapon dropped from his hand. Fully expecting that Carlo Magno would try to possess himself of it, he hastily bent down to regain it. But Carlo Magno had other thoughts. Waiting calmly till the monster had bent him sufficiently low, he swung his fine sharp blade and buried it deep in his heart with the unerring dexterity with which the matador lays low his bull--at one thrust.
Of course he severed the giant's head afterwards to bear away as his trophy; and raising the princess in his arms, who had swooned away at sight of the horrid combat, bore her swiftly upwards through the subterranean path and delivered her, yet unconscious, to her father.
A great war was proclaimed between Spain and Portugal, and the king called all his knights to arms to follow him into the field.
"Tell me, Conde," said the wife of Conde Sol, "how many years will you be absent in this campaign?"
"If I am not back, Condesa, in six years, reckon me dead, and forget me, and take another husband."
Six years pass, and eight, and ten, and one more yet, and the Conde Sol is not come back, nor has any news been heard of him. Men say he has fallen in the wars; but the Countess believes them not; her heart tells her that her husband lives, and she will take no rest and no diversion. Her father comes to see her, and he finds her always in tears.