Several of the dwarfs became even visible, as the twigs suddenly tore the hoods from their heads. Thereupon the men became furious and tried to strike all the harder; but suddenly a violent storm broke forth and the hail came down in torrents, cutting the whole standing crop to pieces and sparing only the rows that had been reaped. The rude countrymen now saw clearly that the Quiet People had foreseen the hailstorm and anticipated the harvest on that account. They repented their brutality, but the dwarfs, disgusted by their ingratitude, never again appeared in that region of country. Similar occurrences took place in other countries. {346}Now let us see, by what perseverance, by what skill, and especially by what audacious conceptions these tiny beings, not much more than a few inches high, succeeded in making themselves masters of the giants. [Illustration: 366] They were running about quite bewildered, pushing and jostling each other in their anxiety to regain their little mole-hill, he stood at first with his mouth {347}wide open, lost in amazement. Then, to amuse himself in true lordly fashion, he crushed a few dozen with his foot. But he was not without curiosity, and hence he tried in the next place to find out something about their manners. The moment was not very well chosen, it must be confessed. Men do not usually choose a city that has just been taken by storm and given up to pillage, for the purpose of studying the manners and customs of its citizens. But we have seen before this, that giants are not remarkably bright. Our giant, whose name I have never been able to ascertain and whom I will call for convenience sake, _Quadragant_ (“Quadragant was rather colossal,” I once read in “Amadis of Gaul;” our giant was really colossal, for he measured thirty feet in height), our giant, I say, stretched himself out at full length and fixed his eyes upon the hole out of which he had pulled the oak tree. He heard a low humming noise underground, but he could see nothing. He thought he would wait patiently, and in waiting he fell quietly asleep, turning over so as to lie on his back, his usual position when he was sleeping. After a few hours’ sound and heavy sleep, such as all giants are said to enjoy, he awoke. Finding {348}that the sun had in the mean time followed his example and gone to sleep, he remembered that it was supper time, and as he thought of the delights in store for him he uttered a long and deep sigh of satisfaction. But something that his long drawn breath had brought up, suddenly jumped out of his mouth. [Illustration: 368] This something was one of the dwarfs; and this dwarf, the boldest and most intelligent among them all, was called Kreiss. But in order to make it clear how Kreiss happened to be almost in the giant’s throat, which was {349}of course only accidentally his home for a time, we must go back and see what had happened while Quadragant was asleep.