No sooner was the heart out of the bag, than it expanded to the size of a bullock; and the giant, with a yell of rage and vengeance, rushed on the two children, who had stepped sideways from the terrible heart. But Buffy-Bob was too quick for Thunderthump. He sprang to the heart, and buried his knife in it, up to the hilt. A fountain of blood spouted from it; and with a dreadful groan the giant fell dead at the feet of little Tricksey-Wee, who could not help being sorry for him after all. THE GOLDEN KEY. There was a boy who used to sit in the twilight and listen to his great-aunt's stories. She told him that if he could reach the place where the end of the rainbow stands he would find there a golden key. "And what is the key for?" the boy would ask. "What is it the key of? What will it open?" "That nobody knows," his aunt would reply. "He has to find that out." "I suppose, being gold," the boy once said, thoughtfully, "that I could get a good deal of money for it if I sold it." "Better never find it than sell it," returned his aunt. And then the boy went to bed and dreamed about the golden key. Now, all that his great-aunt told the boy about the golden key would have been nonsense, had it not been that their little house stood on the borders of Fairyland. For it is perfectly well known that out of Fairyland nobody ever can find where the rainbow stands. The creature takes such good care of its golden key, always flitting from place to place, lest anyone should find it! But in Fairyland it is quite different. Things that look real in this country look very thin indeed in Fairyland, while some of the things that here cannot stand still for a moment, will not move there. So it was not in the least absurd of the old lady to tell her nephew such things about the golden key. "Did you ever know anybody find it?" he asked one evening. "Yes. Your father, I believe, found it." "And what did he do with it, can you tell me?" "He never told me." "What was it like?" "He never showed it to me." "How does a new key come there always?" "I don't know. There it is." "Perhaps it is the rainbow's egg." "Perhaps it is. You will be a happy boy if you find the nest." "Perhaps it comes tumbling down the rainbow from the sky." "Perhaps it does."