I burrowed deeply into the softness of the moss, and feared and wondered. But the present comfort was very great, and I reflected that I had not been hurt, and that for such strength so to lift me meant that I had been picked up very gently. I think I should have slept, had he not lifted the basket from his shoulders, and lowered it to the ground, closing the top, which drew in with a short thong, as he did so. For a few moments I lay still, and then wriggled through the moss till I could see out of the opening, which was wide enough for a considerable view, though not sufficient for me to escape. I saw that we were in a cavity, like that in which I had rested previously. There were the same furnishings, and on the wall-tablet the giant was painting a fourth mark, below three which were there already. He had taken off his belt, and thrown it into a corner, with the six captives still fastened to it. He now pulled one of them off, and taking it between thumb and finger, shredded the four limbs. While he did this, the creature made no sound, but the wide jaws snapped continually. Laying down the limbless body, he proceeded to peel and eat the limbs as one might shred off the skin of a banana. They did not bleed, the flesh being like a stiff jelly, of a bright-red colour, and veined with a gristly white substance, giving an appearance like the flesh of a pomegranate. Hideous as these creatures were, it shocked me to see this callous tearing of one that still lived, apparently with undiminished vitality; but the eater’s face, as I now saw it, had no suggestion of savagery. Rather it was melancholy and preoccupied, and as he ate he talked continually to himself in a plaintive monotone, though with an organ volume. I reflected that men who are otherwise humane will swallow a living oyster, of the skinning of eels, of the fish that are boiled alive in Indian kettles, and of a hundred cruelties to which custom has inured mankind, and thought I understood, however incompletely,--which, of course, I did not. The limbs being gone, he picked up the trunk, and, twisting off the gnashing head, he threw it down and proceeded to complete his meal. Such offal as there was,--it was unlike that of any creature familiar to me,--he collected neatly, with the peeled skin, and the severed head, and opening the bag in which I lay, threw them in with me. I realised afterwards that it was for the orderly deposit of such refuse, among the aromatic moss, that he carried it with him.