This was the first time Abel had felt his power, or had been of consequence to any one, since the boys had turned him out from their games; and it gave him a momentary activity, and an unsettled sort of spirit, which he had never known since then. He had been shunned and abhorred; and he believed himself the victim of some demoniac power. To have another in this fearful bondage with him, as Paul had intimated, was a relief from his dreadful solitariness in his terrors and sufferings. "And he said that it was I who was to work a curse on him," muttered Abel. "It cannot be, surely, that such a thing as I am can harm a man like him!" And though Abel remembered Paul's kindness, and that this was to seal his own doom too, yet it stirred the spirit of pride within him. "What are you muttering to yourself, there in the dark," demanded Paul; "or whom talk you with, you withered wretch?" Abel shook in every joint at the sound of Paul's harsh voice. "It is so dreadfully still here," said Abel; "I hear nothing but your steps behind me, and they make me start." This was true; for notwithstanding his touch of instant pride, his terrors and his fear of Paul were as great as ever. "Speak louder then," said Paul, "or hold your peace. I like not your muttering; it bodes no good." "It may bring a curse to you, worse than that on me, if a worse can be," said Abel to himself; "but who can help it?" Day broke before they cleared the ridge; a drizzling rain came on; and the wind, beginning to rise, drove through the crevices in the rocks with sharp whistling sounds which seemed to come from malignant spirits of the air. They had scarcely entered the wood when the storm became furious; and the trees, swaying and beating with their branches against one another, seemed possessed of a supernatural madness, and engaged in wild conflict, as if there were life and passion in them; and their broken, decayed arms groaned like things in torment. The terror of these sights and sounds was too much for poor Abel; it nearly crazed him; and he set up a shriek that for a moment drowned the noise of the storm. It startled Paul; and when he looked at him, the boy's face was of a ghostly whiteness. The rain had drenched him to the skin; his clothes clung to his lean body, that shook as if it would come apart; his eyes flew wildly, and his teeth chattered against each other. The fears and torture of his mind gave something unearthly to his look, that made Paul start back. "Abel--boy--fiend--speak! What has seized you?" "They told me so," cried Abel--"I've done it--I led the way for you--they're coming, they're coming--we're lost!" "Peace, fool," said Paul, trying to shake off the power he felt Abel gaining over him, "and find us a shelter if you can." "There's only the hut," said Abel, "and I wouldn't go into that if it rained fire." "And why not?"