into my left thigh."

As he said this he carefully ran his hand over the insulted part, and,
after giving himself up for a few moments to bitter meditation:

"What idiots those Penguins are! I am tired of blowing flames in the
faces of such imbeciles. Orberosia, do you hear me?"

Having thus spoken the hero raised his terrible helmet in his hands and
gazed at it for a long time in gloomy silence. Then he pronounced these
rapid words:

"I have made this helmet with my own hands in the shape of a fish's
head, covering it with the skin of a seal. To make it more terrible I
have put on it the horns of a bull and I have given it a boar's jaws;
I have hung from it a horse's tail dyed vermilion. When in the gloomy
twilight I threw it over my shoulders no inhabitant of this island had
courage to withstand its sight. Women and children, young men and old
men fled distracted at its approach, and I carried terror among the
whole race of Penguins. By what advice does that insolent people lose
its earlier fears and dare to-day to behold these horrible jaws and to
attack this terrible crest?"

And throwing his helmet on the rocky soil:

"Perish, deceitful helmet!" cried Kraken. "I swear by all the demons of
Armor that I will never bear you upon my head again."

And having uttered this oath he stamped upon his helmet, his gloves, his
boots, and upon his tail with its twisted folds.