OVER THE GREAT CHAIN 241 



In the great caverns and ice-clefts of Elbruz spell- 

 bound giants live, poor monsters fettered for lack of 

 worldly knowledge. Only one human being in all the 

 ages has penetrated the recesses where the enchanted 

 spirits live, and he, though he was clever enough to 

 get there, was a poor unlettered Abkhasian, who was 

 no good as a missionary at all. 



Legendary lore says that the tallest giant addressed 

 the visitor in the usual pedantic giant language. 



" O, child of man in the upper world, who hast dared 

 to thrust thy presence here, tell us how lives the race 

 of men ? Is woman still true to man ? Is love the 

 fulfilling of the law ? Is the daughter still obedient to 

 her mother ? " 



The foolish native, apparently ignorant of the 

 immemorial rules for the salving of enchanted giants, 

 stupidly replied that he supposed so, whereon every 

 one of the great creatures fell to crying bitterly, and, 

 gnashing their teeth in approved fashion, said that 

 under the idyllic circumstances prevailing overhead 

 they would all, of course, have to continue to dree 

 their enchanted weird to its miserable end. 



They say — that elusive will-o'-the-wisp, mightiest 

 of all reporters, save Moses, and he was the greatest 

 reporter the world will ever know — that a tender- 

 hearted member of the Alpine Club has broken the 

 prison bars at last by tipping a copy of Lady Cardigan's 

 Recollections down a chink in the grand plateau of 

 Elbruz, but I can't tell you if the tale is true. I simply 

 lay it before the Copenhagen of your judgment. Men 

 are disbelievers ever. Only the other day I read 



