The giant shook his head again. “Hevn’t the slightest idee. Couldn’t no more say who ye air ’n I could say who’ll be keepin’ Highland Light in the year nineteen hundred ’n eighty-six. Malviny says ye’re a passel o’ crazytics, an’ that’s all I want to know about ye. I never go behind what Malviny says. She’ll be back with the cunstable presently, an’ they’ll settle your case. Meanwhile, here you’ll hev to stay till they come.” He leaned back in his chair and began rocking to and fro, resting his clam hoe across his knees. “But see here,” persisted Jasper; “that is all nonsense, you know, about our being crazy. We——” “Hi! hi!” interrupted the giant, stopping his chair. “What’s that ye say? Be keerful, young man. _Be_ keerful!” He lifted his ponderous fore-finger and slowly waved it back and forth with an air of solemn warning. “Don’t you ventur’ fur to dare fur to assertify that anything Malviny says is nonsense! She allus knows what she’s talkin’ about. If she says you’re crazy, crazy you _be_,—an’ ye can’t help yourselves.” “But I say——” poor Jasper once again began. “Now, be keerful, young man. _Be_ keerful!” The awful finger again cleft the air. “Oh!” cried Jasper, stamping his foot in impotent rage. “This is intolerable! You’ve not a particle of right to keep us here. Move one side, I say, and let us pass.” He advanced a step and threateningly confronted his enemy. But the latter remained perfectly unmoved, save that again he gravely shook his head. “Not till Malviny comes,” was his imperturbable answer. “Not till Malviny comes.” And Jasper, brave as any lad, but well aware in his heart that he would no more think of actually attacking that gigantic adversary than of throwing himself upon an advancing locomotive, yielded to the renewed entreaties of Ethel and Kitty, and sullenly returned to his seat. Then for many minutes—just how many, no one knew—there was perfect silence in the house,—or silence the perfection of which was only marred by the ticking of the little Waterbury clock on the kitchen mantel. The prisoners sat there in a dazed, despairing sort of mood, their eyes most of the time bent upon the floor, content to wait without further motion the issue of events. All at once, from the watcher’s direction, there came a sound, loud, clear, sonorous, unmistakable—the sound of a human snore. They all looked up surprised, and a single glance at the mammoth form in the doorway assured them of the fact which the sound had intimated. Their keeper slept.