All the rest of the night the fox ran and ran ; but when bright red spread over the east , he stopped and waited till the giants were close upon him . Then he turned , and said quietly : ` Look , there is the Sister of the Sun ! ' The giants raised their eyes all at once , and were instantly turned into pillars of stone . The fox then made each pillar a low bow , and set off to join his friends . He knew a great many short cuts across the hills , so it was not long before he came up with them , and all four travelled night and day till they reached the castle of the Sister of the Sun . What joy and feasting there was throughout the palace at the sight of the princess whom they had mourned as dead ! and they could not make enough of the boy who had gone through such dangers in order to rescue her . The golden hen was given to him at once , and , more than that , the Sister of the Sun told him that , in a little time , when he was a few years older , she would herself pay a visit to his home and become his wife . The boy could hardly believe his ears when he heard what was in store for him , for his was the most beautiful princess in all the world ; and however thick the darkness might be , it fled away at once from the light of a star on her forehead . So the boy set forth on his journey home , with his friends for company ; his heart full of gladness when he thought of the promise of the princess . But , one by one , his comrades dropped off at the places where they had first met him , and he was quite alone when he reached his native town and the gates of the palace . With the golden hen under his arm he presented himself before the king , and told his adventures , and how he was going to have for a wife a princess so wonderful and unlike all other princesses , that the star on her forehead could turn night into day . The king listened silently , and when the boy had done , he said quietly : ` If I find that your story is not true I will have you thrown into a cask of pitch . ' ` It is true -- every word of it , ' answered the boy ; and went on to tell that the day and even the hour were fixed when his bride was to come and seek him . But as the time drew near , and nothing was heard of the princess , the youth became anxious and uneasy , especially when it came to his ears that the great cask was being filled with pitch , and that sticks were laid underneath to make a fire to boil it with . All day long the boy stood at the window , looking over the sea by which the princess must travel ; but there were no signs of her , not even the tiniest white sail . And , as he stood , soldiers came and laid hands on him , and led him up to the cask , where a big fire was blazing , and the horrid black pitch boiling and bubbling over the sides . He looked and shuddered , but there was no escape ; so he shut his eyes to avoid seeing . The word was given for him to mount the steps which led to the top of the cask , when , suddenly , some men were seen running with all their might , crying as they went that a large ship with its sails spread was making straight for the city . No one knew what the ship was , or whence it came ; but the king declared that he would not have the boy burned before its arrival , there would always be time enough for that .
At length the vessel was safe in port , and a whisper went through the watching crowd that on board was the Sister of the Sun , who had come to marry the young peasant XXXXX she had promised .
If across as by for on over so that through