Very softly, stealthily they extended the ladder and crept down into the stable. Walter was sleepy but he loved the children and yielded willingly to their soft persuasions. The old horse seemed to sense that something wonderful was occurring and that much depended upon him. And while the boys led him slowly, with padded hoofs across the yard to the gate and the other children made their way noiselessly toward the edge of the bog where they were to await Mollie and the boys, the brave girl crept, little by little, into the home of the monster, across the kitchen floor and up the narrow stairs leading to that dark, windowless alcove where the ogre slept. He was snoring, loudly. She could hear him. She could also hear Ambrose's heavy breathing from the small alcove adjoining. She did not hear Maria but she hoped and prayed that she, also, might be sleeping with equal soundness. It was very dark. If she stubbed her bare toes on anything that hurt she must make no sound, no move for a moment. But she escaped that danger. At the door of the room she paused again to listen. Then she stole in, oh, so lightly! No fairy could have been more still. Her hand reached out toward the bed post where the ogre's trousers were wont to hang, ready to be donned with speed if the great bell rang in the night. He moved heavily in his sleep. Mollie stood rigid, her heart in her mouth. But he continued snoring. Maria groaned and snuffled. She was dreaming. She thought, probably, that she was being beaten. Again Mollie's hand reached toward the bed post. This time she was successful. The trousers were there. She detached them with the lightness of touch and deftness of a little bird struggling with a string for its nest. Then she turned. If the ascent of the stairs had been dangerous the descent was more so. She wanted to go fast and dared not. Every creak seemed as loud as a thunderclap. But nothing happened. She reached the door in safety and fairly shot across the yard to where the boys were waiting with the horse. She did not see the window back of her--that small, glass window that Grimes had had put into the alcove where Ambrose slept and which was not there the night Mollie and Stephen had said their childish prayers, beseeching guardian angels to watch over them in that dark and fearsome place. And now Ambrose, like a young imp, was peering out at the array of tiny, dark outlines which dotted the yard as far as he could see. Something had creaked, he thought. He was not yet accustomed to that new window. He thought the wind might break it, or something. So he got up to examine it. And what he saw terrified him.