as you have told already, I would pardon him likewise; I pity this
youth and do not want to put him to death if I could help it.'

`That happens well,' says the Thief of Sloan, `for I like him
best myself, and have reserved the most curious passage for the last
on his account.'

`Well, then,' says the knight, `let us hear it.'

`I was one day on my travels,' says the Black Thief, `and I
came into a large forest, where I wandered a long time, and could
not get out of it. At length I came to a large castle, and fatigue
obliged me to call in the same, where I found a young woman and
a child sitting on her knee, and she crying. I asked her what
made her cry, and where the lord of the castle was, for I wondered
greatly that I saw no stir of servants or any person about the
place.

` ``It is well for you,'' says the young woman, ``that the lord of
this castle is not at home at present; for he is a monstrous giant,
with but one eye on his forehead, who lives on human flesh. He
brought me this child,'' says she, ``I do not know where he got it,
and ordered me to make it into a pie, and I cannot help crying at
the command.''

`I told her that if she knew of any place convenient that I
could leave the child safely I would do it, rather than it should be
killed by such a monster.

`She told me of a house a distance off where I would get a