He found himself looking down into a dell surrounded by many high granite rocks, which made access difficult to the Grisly Cave. The Dwarf was busy about the great black iron pot in which he was getting ready to boil Little Rooty. The Green Man saw his boy stripped of his suit of velvet, and trussed up neck and knee ready for cooking, while every time the Ugly Gray Dwarf approached he gave him a kick in passing to make him more tender, grinning and whetting a carving-knife all the time on a monster "steel" that hung by his side. So you may believe that in a moment the Green Man had his bow strung taut, and his heart beat as the dull glitter of the arrow-point, from which the green stuff was still dripping, came into line with the hairy throat of the wicked Dwarf. "_CLIP!_" That was the smacking sound of the bow-string going back to the straight. "_IZZ--IK!_" That was the sound of the little elf arrow, dropping green juice from its willow-leaf-shaped head, every drop of which was death. The "_IK!_" was when the elf shaft struck the Gray Dwarf and the point broke off in his throat. He said nothing for a moment, but the knife that was in his hand to cut up Little Rooty with clattered on the stones, while he himself fell with a "squelch" like a big heap of wet clothes thrown down on the laundry floor on washing-day morning. Then they cut Little Rooty's bonds, and took him home on his father's back, his mother carrying the bow and the precious bag of arrow-heads. But instead of the sound beating his father had promised him, they gave Rooty (and all the other children) corn-cake and bramble jam, nut paste, raspberry short-bread, and heather honey made into toffee. They danced on the tree-tops all the night long, and illuminated all the windows of the Bogle Thorn with glow-worms--who, in consideration of the circumstances, gave their services _gratis_. As for the Gray Dwarf, they never bothered any more about him, and I dare say if you care to go up by the Grisly Cave at the end of Deep Dooms Wood on the right, as you turn to the Falls of Drumbledowndreary, you may find his bones unto this day. * * * * * The end of the story of the Little Green Man, as Father told it for Fifteen Years, anyway. XVIII THE BEAD CURTAIN