As twilight crept into the cave, he knelt in solemn supplication to the departing sun. Presently, when darkness had descended, he struck two flints, lit one end of his pine-wood staff, moved the screen aside, drew a long deep breath, and crawled swiftly into the other cave. Slowly he moved his torch from side to side of the cave’s mouth, along the ground. He was holding it in his left hand, and in his right hand was holding one of the two flat stones. After a pause, still kneeling, he raised high the torch for a moment or two and then sharply lowered it in the direction of one of the smoke-clouded animals. At the same time he powerfully clashed the one stone down upon the other. Another pause, and he repeated these actions exactly, directing the torch towards the next animal. He performed them ten times in all. Then he extinguished his torch and crept quickly home, puffing and spluttering and snorting, glad to escape into clear air. When he had regained his breath, he crawled back to drag the carcasses in. The roe and the buck he left where they were. He had calculated that three nightly journeys to the marshes and back would be all that he could achieve. First he would take the two sheep, one on each shoulder; next, the goats; lastly the birds, three necks in either hand. The buck and the roe would be too heavy to be carried together; and for five journeys there would certainly not be time. It was for this reason that he had described the dragon as smaller than the old one, and had clashed the stones ten times only. From the valley rose sounds of rejoicing that all was well for the homeland to-night. One by one, Thol transferred the carcasses to his own cave. He waited there among them till the dead of night, when all folk would be sleeping. Then, shouldering the two sheep, he sallied forth down the hill and away to the marshes. He accomplished the whole of his night-work before the stars had begun to fade. Then, having replenished and banked the fire, he lay down to sleep. Some four hours later he woke to go and tend the fire again, and then again slept. * * * * * It was a toilsome, lonesome, monotonous and fuliginous life that Thol had chosen; but he never faltered in it. Always at nightfall he impersonated the dragon, and in the small hours went his journeys to the marshes; and never once did he let the fire die. The afternoons passed very slowly. He wished he could sally forth into the sunshine, like other men. He paced round and round his cave, hour after hour, a strange figure, dark-handed, dark-visaged, dark-bearded. In so far as they deigned to remember him at all, the homelanders supposed he had gone away, that first morning, across the waters or through the forests, to some land where he could look men in the face. Here he was, however, in their midst, a strenuous and faithful servant.