"Nor was this all, for behind the girl, a brief distance away in what appeared a woodland dell, was another figure--a man of aspect akin to the grinning gnomes, save that in comparative size even to the girl he was gigantic. Ten times her height, perhaps, he stood behind her towering into the trees about him. A man of short, squat legs, dark with matted hair; a garment like the gnomes', which might have been an animal skin; a heavy massive chest; black hair long to his neck. A face with clipped hair upon it. He was regarding the girl; a grin, but with a leer to it--horribly sinister. And in his great hands, brandished like a bludgeon, was an uprooted tree. "Have I given you an idea of motion in the scene? There was none. The girl was obviously wholly unaware that she was not alone. She lay motionless. But the lack of movement in her--in them all--was more marked than that. The girl's lips were parted in a half-smile of revery; but the outlines of her bosom beneath the silver veil did not move. There was no movement of breath; no change of expression. The gnomes, the giant--not the minutest change could I see mirrored in their faces. "Yet it was so lifelike, I could not doubt it was life--and that the motion was there though I could not see it. I watched all night, shaken with this fragment of drama, perhaps tragedy, which I was witnessing--but even the girl's eyelids did not tremble. Dawn came; the scene faded. "For a month I did not even tell Father; and Frank, the vision of that girl has never left me. The menace--gruesome, sinister--upon her--and her beauty----" "Haven't you ever seen her again?" I asked eagerly. "Was it life? How could it be life without motion?" "Oh, he saw her again," Martt exclaimed. "I've seen her--we've all seen her." "Tell him, Brett," Frannie urged. "A month before I even told Father. During it, I searched for the scene unavailing, then Father and I searched together. It was a year, when almost from the same orbital position we came upon the scene again. A year--and now we saw a change. The figures all were there, frozen into immobility as before. But the gnome had caught the tassel, had drawn himself partly up to stand upon the girl's white ankle. The giant had come a trifle forward, and the upraised tree in his hands was partly lowered. The girl's attitude was unchanged, but there was now upon her face the vague dawn of startled knowledge, as though at that instant she was becoming aware of something pulling at her sandal cord, something touching her ankle--perhaps too, she was hearing a sound from the giant behind her. The startled knowledge which as yet had not had time fully to register upon her face." My mind was whirling with a confusion of thoughts; the vague comprehension of what Brett meant was coming to me. I stammered, "Not yet had time--but Brett, you must have watched them all that night----"