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Now it was the custom of the wood-men to cut down, during the summer, such trees as would be needed for the coming winter, and one day the wood-cutter in whose family the maiden dwelt announced his intention of cutting down the great elm. "Not the great elm which towers above all the forest?" cried the maiden. "Yes, that very tree," answered the woodcutter gruffly.
She spake merrily now, and as one who feared nothing, and Walter was much heartened by her words and her voice, and he fell to and made a fire, and a woodland oven in the earth, and sithence dighted his fowl, and baked them after the manner of wood-men. And they ate, both of them, in all love, and in good-liking of life, and were much strengthened by their supper.
They set out accordingly about ten o'clock in the morning, Herbert confident, Neb joyous, Pencroft murmuring aside, "If, on my return, I find a fire at the house, I shall believe that the thunder itself came to light it." All three climbed the bank; and arrived at the angle made by the river, the sailor, stopping, said to his two companions, "Shall we begin by being hunters or wood-men?"
This letter was entrusted to the care of two wood-men, who were at work on one of the great forests of the mountains, and, being acquainted with the shortest cuts, arrived in ten days at Samarah. The Princess Carathis was engaged at chess with Morakanabad, when the arrival of these wood-fellers was announced.
And several days after this His Majesty made cunning wood-men to go and cut down the acacia trees of Pharaoh, and whilst the August Lady was standing and watching their being cut down, a splinter flew from one of them into her mouth, and she knew that she had conceived, and the King did for her everything which her heart desired.
Then all slept, as only wood-men sleep, save when for moments Cancut's trumpet-tones sounded alarums, and we others awoke to punch and batter the snorer into silence. In due time, bird and cricket whistled and chirped the reveille. We sprang from our lair. We dipped in the river and let its gentle friction polish us more luxuriously than ever did any hair-gloved polisher of an Oriental bath.
I had the good fortune to divert the emperor one day after a very extraordinary manner. I desired he would order several sticks of two feet high, and the thickness of an ordinary cane, to be brought me; whereupon his majesty commanded the master of his woods to give directions accordingly; and the next morning six wood-men arrived with as many carriages, drawn by eight horses to each.
The wood-men were overcome with fear when they beheld these three horrible phantoms run, and, not much relishing the company of Alboufaki, stood aghast at the command of Carathis to set forward, notwithstanding it was noon, and the heat fierce enough to calcine even rocks. In spite, however, of every remonstrance, they were forced implicitly to submit.
The negresses, full of joy at the behests of their mistress, and promising themselves much pleasure from the society of the Gouls, went with an air of conquest, and began their knockings at the tombs; as their strokes were repeated a hollow noise was heard in the earth, the surface hove up into heaps, and the Gouls on all sides protruded their noses, to inhale the effluvia which the carcases of the wood-men began to emit.
Mother smiled what the children called her mysterious smile. "You look like two little wood-men yourselves," she said. "Lottchen, stand up straight in the hole and look at me." Lottchen stood up just fitting into the green mark on the tree behind her. She made a pretty picture, her laughing brown eyes with the long eyelashes, her rosy cheeks, and the wind-blown hair straying from under her hood.
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