THE OGRE. 229 



tliis was bis way of going to sleep ; and now or never, thought 

 I, I must make a trial to escape. I examined the bank above 

 my head, and seeing on its smooth surface a piece of pro- 

 jecting stone, fixed, apparently, like that which was supporting 

 me, I set foot on the steep ascent with a view to grasp it, but 

 on my first step a mass of dislodged sand fell rolling down- 

 wards. How I shuddered lest the Ogre should be roused ! 

 and so, in truth, he was that is, if he had ever been asleep- 

 for instantly rising to meet the stream of sand descending 

 came a volley of the same, thrown up, seemingly, by the tossing 

 of the monster's broad flat head, as he still kept wallowing in 

 his soft bed at bottom of the den. I was almost blinded, and 

 thrown nearly off my station, but I contrived to keep it, and 

 in a short time all was again clear and quiet, and nothing but 

 those terrible tusks above the sand showed sign of a living 

 thing in the cavern, except my poor trembling little self. 



" If the Ogre's sleep was real, perhaps he had resumed it ; 

 but whether or no, I dared not again to set foot on the loose 

 surface of my prison-wall, but kept crouching on my ledge of 

 stone, till I grew as cold as it, and wished myself as senseless, 

 that I might not hear, as every moment I expected, another 

 stir below me, and feel myself being pelted down into the 

 monster's clutches. But hours, seeming weeks, went on, and 

 the Ogre remained still as death, till, as I supposed by the 

 increased obscurity of the cavern, the sun had set. Then, 

 suddenly, it grew darker still; I heard a distant roll of 



