At this moment of extreme peril, when the last gleam of consciousness lingered in his brain, the prince recollected the bouquet of violets which he still carried in his bosom, and drawing it forth with a desperate effort, thrust it into the little pug nose of the giant, which was directly before him. That instant the proboscis relaxed, as if by magic, and the giant suddenly untwining its folds, commenced a fit of sneezing, awful to hear, jumping up several feet from the ground at every paroxysm, swearing at intervals like a trooper, and cutting the most enormous capers. The moment Prince Violet recovered himself sufficiently, he dismounted, and regaining his trusty sword, belabored the impenetrable hide of the egregious monster with such arrant good will, that he retreated backward between every fit of sneezing, until finally falling into the moat, he stuck fast in the mud, sneezing and roaring most vociferously. Prince Violet lost no time, but passed swiftly into the castle, and proceeding through several apartments, far more vast and magnificent than the palace of King Doddipol, at length came to the study where the wicked enchanter practiced Mesmerism, and other diabolical devices. The old sinner was seated in an arm-chair of ebony, curiously carved, and ornamented with figures of strange, misshapen imps, among which the prince recognized his old friend, Master Whipswitchem. By his side stood a female of such transcendent and inimitable beauty, that the prince at once concluded this was the phantom against whom he was so emphatically warned by his good friend the fairy. He allowed himself but one glance, which sufficed to convince him she resembled exactly the charming princess he had so often seen in his dreams, and which had like to have proved fatal. Then shutting his eyes, he advanced backward, sword in hand, toward the enchanter, who at the first moment he saw him, began those mysterious wavings of the hand with which he was wont to put his victims to sleep, and those cabalistic words which changed men into beasts, insects, and reptiles. But the prince having his eyes shut, and his back toward him, could not see his motions, and the enchanter being horribly affrighted, as well as naturally a great blockhead, was so long in recollecting the formula of his incantation, that the prince, seeing by a sly glance over the shoulder, that he was sufficiently near, suddenly turned round, and with one blow severed his head from his shoulders. Then catching it before it fell to the ground, he threw it into the great kettle that hung boiling over the fire. He was just in time, for Curmudgeon had got to the last but one of his cabalistic words, and in a single instant more, Prince Violet would have been changed into a cabbage. No sooner was the head thrown into the kettle, than the water began to hiss and foam, and blaze up in spires of blue sulphureous flame, until finally the kettle burst into a thousand fragments, and