The giant, who was left behind, reached over to draw to him a large rocking-chair that stood near by and sat down before the door, not saying a word. Freddy felt quite certain now that he was Polyphemus—Polyphemus, with his terrible single eye, sitting at the door of his cave and keeping guard over Ulysses and his band. As for the rest, they knew not what to do or say. What did it all mean? What strange people these they had come among,—the woman who took them for lunatics, and that grim creature at the door? Could the woman really have believed them crazy? She had said so. And her manner from the first, as they now recalled it, suspicious and uneasy, seemed to say so too. And, indeed, it was hardly to be wondered at, considering their absurd actions. What then would come of it? Would the constable, when he came, think they were crazy too?—and the magistrate? Cape Cod people, they had always heard, were queer people. The situation seemed really serious. They looked at each other soberly, not speaking yet, but all thinking some such thoughts as these. But Jasper, as the man of the party, felt that it behooved him to do something at once. He got up from his chair and advanced, with as determined a bearing as he could assume, in the direction of their keeper. Ethel turned pale. “Oh, Jasper!” she murmured. “What are you going to do? Please don’t go near him.” “No,” Kitty whispered, equally alarmed; “pray don’t. Let us wait quietly till the constable comes. It will be all right then.” No one of them thought any longer of maintaining their agreement as to singing, which, indeed, had been quite driven out of their minds. “Pooh!” answered Jasper with lofty valor, “I’m only going to request our monumental friend here to move one side a little so that we can pass out. It’s time we were going.” Then, as the person alluded to paid no attention, he addressed him directly. “If you please, my friend, we’d like to pass out.” [Illustration: “‘I WANT YOU TO KEEP GUARD OVER ’EM TILL I COME BACK,’ SAID THE WOMAN.”] The other shook his head,—calmly and quietly enough. It was not anything the man did, nor indeed anything he said, when he came to speak, that was so terrible, after all; it was simply his forbidding face and his gigantic figure. “I’m very sorry,” said he in a voice so deep and sepulchral one might well have fancied it was supplied to him somehow from the cellar below, “very sorry indeed. But the fact is ye can’t be allowed to go,—not till Malviny comes back.” “Look here, now,” observed Jasper, straightening up and trying to look terrible himself. “Wall, I’m lookin’ here.” The man calmly regarded him with his single eye. “Do you know who we are?” Jasper continued.