240 PAETIAL UNRAVELMENT. 



darting from his station on the trunk of an elm, lighted on 

 the edge of the cavity, devouring her with his great eyes, and 

 ready to swallow her down his great throat. There was only 

 one place of refuge open for the trembling Piccoletta, and 

 that was the ball beside her, into which, in her desperate 

 strait, she was right glad to creep. But the Pecchio was not 

 to be so easily baulked of his coveted morsel. He dipped his 

 enormous red head into the pitfall, seized with his long bony 

 proboscis both the ball and its shaking occupant, rose with 

 them into air, and dropped them, by good luck for Piccoletta, 

 in the midst of her acquaintance. 



This was an explanation, simple enough, of Piccoletta's 

 entrance into, and her exit from, the wonderful ball ; but its 

 chief mysteries were still unravelled. Who could tell what 

 that ball had to do with the Ogre and his pitfall? how it 

 first came there ? how a winged shape, with pinions of ex- 

 pansion many times wider than itself, could have issued, ap- 

 parently, from the globe ? and how the Ogre's remains were 

 found in its interior ? 



Who could explain any of these enigmas ? 



Not, certainly, the citizens of Monticello, to whom all these 

 things were as the work of a magician. 



For awhile, after the occurrences we have related, no new 

 ogre-pits or ogres were seen, but the people continued to be 

 frequently carried off by the winged genii which had arisen 

 from out the excavations. 



