The wood fell: only the sky remained and the earth with a few juniper bushes and countless rows of tree-trunks, hastily stripped of their branches. The rapacious axe had not spared one of the leafy tribe. Not one--not even the centenarian oak which had been touched by lightning more than once. Gazing upwards, this defier of storms had hardly noticed the worms turning round its feet, and the blows of their axes meant no more to it than the tapping of the woodpecker. It fell suddenly, convinced at the last that the world was insecure after all, and not worth living in. There was another oak, half withered, on the branches of which the unfortunate Simon Golamb[1] had hanged himself; the people passed it in fear. [Footnote 1: Polish spelling: _Gotab_.] 'Flee!' it murmured, when the woodcutters approached. 'I bring you death; only one man dared to touch my branches, and he died.' But the woodcutters paid no heed, deeper and deeper they sent the sharp axe into its heart, and with a roar it swayed and fell. The night-wind moaned over the corpses of the strong trees, and the birds and wild creatures, deprived of their native habitations, mourned. Older still than the oaks were the huge boulders thickly sown over the fields. The peasants had never touched them; they were too heavy to be removed; moreover, there was a superstition that the rebellious devils had in the first days of the creation thrown these stones at the angels, and that it was unlucky to touch them. Overgrown with moss they each lay in an island of green grass; the shepherds lit their fires beneath them on chilly nights, the ploughmen lay down in their shade on a hot afternoon, the hawker would sometimes hide his treasures underneath them. Now their last hour had struck too; men began to busy themselves about them. At first the village people thought that the 'Swabians' were looking for treasure; but Jendrek found out that they were boring holes in the venerable stones. 'What are the idiots doing that for?' asked Slimakowa. 'Blessed if I know what's the good of that to them!' 'I know, neighbour,' said old Sobieska, blinking her eyes; 'they are boring because they have heard that there are toads inside those big stones.' 'And what if there are?' 'You see, they want to know if it's true.' 'But what's that to them?' 'I'll be hanged if I know!' retorted Sobieska in such a decided tone that Slimakowa considered the matter as settled. The Germans, however, were not looking for toads. Before long such a cannonading began that the echoes reached the farthest ends of the valley, telling every one that not even the rocks were able to withstand the Germans. 'Those Swabians are a hard race,' muttered Slimak, as he gazed on the giants that had been dashed to pieces. He thought of the colonists for whom the property had been bought, and who now wanted his land as well. 'They are not anywhere about,' he thought; 'perhaps they won't come after all.' But they came.