"They'll give you something at home for bringing us back; they will indeed," said Duke. "Grandpapa and Grandmamma will be so pleased to see us safe again, I _know_ they'll give you something," he repeated, while a sob rose in his throat at the thought that already perhaps dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma--never had they seemed _so_ dear!--were wondering and troubled about their absence. And somehow he quite forgot that he himself could reward the gipsy, for in attending to Pamela's wounded foot he had laid down the money-box, and no longer remembered that he had it with him. The gipsy grunted, and muttered something about "making sure" that Duke scarcely heard. Then he turned to go. "I'm off for the donkey then. But mind you the stiller you stays in this here wood the better," he added impressively. "That's why I didn't like missy crying out so loud. It's a queer place--a _very_ queer place. I'se warrant your Nurse never brought you this way when you were out a-walking." "No, never," said Duke, startled, and even Pamela left off sobbing to stare up at him with her tearful blue eyes, as if fascinated by these mysterious hints. "Ah, I thought not," he said, nodding his head. "Well, stay where you are, and make no sound whatsumnever, and no harm'll come to ye. But if you stir or speak even above a whisper," and he lowered his own voice, "there's no saying. There's beasts you never heard tell of in this wood--worsest of all, snakes, that think nothing of twisting round a child and off with it for their supper afore one could cry out. But if you stop quite still they'll not find you out before I'm back with the donkey. It's about their time o' day for sleeping just now, I'm thinking," and with this crumb of consolation the cruel-hearted gipsy turned on his heel. Words would fail me to describe the terror of the two poor little children: a cry of appeal to the pedlar to stay beside them, not to leave them to the dreadful creatures he spoke of, rose to their lips, but stopped there. For were they not almost as terrified of him as of the snakes? Pamela forgot all about her wounded foot, though it was growing stiff with pain, and the blood, which Duke's unskilful binding had not succeeded in checking, was still flowing in a way that would have alarmed more experienced eyes. It was cold too--and terror made them colder--for the evening was drawing on, and it was only April. Yet they dared not move--Pamela indeed could not have stood up--and so there they stayed, Duke crouched beside his sister, who lay almost at full length on the short tufty grass, among the roots and stumps, for just here a good deal of wood had been cut down. There was no fear of their moving--the shivers and sobs that they could not control added to their fears--they would have left off breathing even, if they could have managed it, rather than risk betraying their presence to the snakes!