thee; and with thy latest breath
declare, what advantage hast thou found of all thy wicked life?'

Barbarico well knew that too bad had been that life, to leave the least
room for hope of mercy; and therefore, instead of an answer, he gave
another hideous yell, gnashing his horrid teeth, and again rolling his
ghastly eyes on all around.

Benefico seeing him thus impenitent and sullen, lifted on high the
mighty sword, and with one blow severed his odious head from his
enormous body.

The whole assembly gave a shout for joy; and Benefico holding in his
hand the monster's yet grinning head, thus addressed his half-astonished
companions: 'See here, my friends, the proper conclusion of a rapacious
cruel life. But let us hasten from this monster's gloomy cave; and on
the top of one of our highest mountains, fixed on a pole, will I set up
this joyful spectacle, that all the country round may know themselves at
liberty to pursue their rural business or amusements, without the
dread of any annoyance from a devouring vile tormentor. And when his
treasures, which justly all belong to the good patient Mignon, are
removed, we will shut up the mouth of this abominable dwelling; and,
casting on the door a heap of earth, we'll hope, in time, that both
place and remembrance of this cruel savage may in time be lost.'

Every one readily cried out, that to Benefico, the good Benefico,
alone belonged the tyrant's treasures; that Benefico should ever be, as
heretofore, their governor, their father, and their kind protector.

The beneficent heart of the good giant was quite melted with this their
kind confidence and dependence upon him, and assured them, he should
ever regard them as his children: and now, exulting in the general joy
that must attend the destruction of this savage monster, when the whole
country should find themselves freed from the terror his rapine and
desolation, he sent before to his castle, to give intelligence to all
within that happy place of the grim monster's fall, and little Mignon's
triumph; giving in charge to the harbinger of these tidings, that it
should be his first and chiefest care to glad the gentle bosom of a
fair disconsolate (who kept herself retired and pent up within her own
apartment) with the knowledge that the inhuman monster was no more; and
that henceforth sweet peace and rural innocence might reign in all their
woods and groves. The hearts of all within the castle bounded with
joy, on hearing