And lo! as she looked, holding Knoal's hand, she saw the shadowy form of the terrible Giant who had been so long invisible growing more and more clearly out of the clouds.
His face was stern as ever, and his eyes were still blind.
Zaya cried to the Giant, still holding Knoal tightly by the hand:
"Not him, not him! Oh, mighty Giant! not him! not him!" and she bowed her head and wept.
There was such. anguish in her hart that to the blind eyes of the shadowy Giant came tears that fell like dew on the forehead of the old man. Knoal spake to Zaya:
"Grieve not, my child. I am glad that you see the Giant again, for I have hope that he will leave our city free from woe. I am the last victim, and I gladly die."
Then Zaya knelt to the Giant, and said:
"Spare him! oh! spare him and take me! but spare him! spare him!"
The old man raised himself upon his elbow as he lay, and spake to her:
"Grieve not, my little one, and repine not. Sooth I know that you would gladly give your life for mine. But we must give for the good of others that which is dearer to us than our lives. Bless you, my little one, and be good. Farewell! farewell!"
As he spake the last word he grew cold as death, and his spirit passed away.
Zaya knelt down and prayed; and when she looked up she saw the shadowy Giant moving away.
The Giant turned as he passed on, and Zaya saw that his blind eyes looked towards her as though he were trying to see. He raised the great shadowy arms, draped still in his shroud of mist, as though blessing her; and she thought that the wind that came by her moaning bore the echo of the words:
"Innocence and devotion save the land."
Presently she saw far off the great shadowy Giant Plague moving away to the border of the Land, and passing between the Guardian Spirits out through the Portal into the deserts beyond-for ever.