Then followed a hungry roar, as of wild beasts unfed. The charm was broken in an instant, and I awoke to a sense of my awful position. To drop my hammer and clamber up the rope as fast as I could was my first step; but what was my horror, when, on raising my eyes aloft, I descried the fiend in the act of deliberately cutting the rope. How fortunate I happened to look upwards just at that moment.
The rope was already half cut through; in another moment I must have been launched into the abyss, to be devoured by the bloodthirsty monsters below. There was no time to lose; I was desperate, so thrusting one foot into a chink in the walls of the chasm, I looked about for another, then for some projecting stone to grasp hold of, and thus by slow degrees, at the imminent peril of my life, I climbed up until I gained the ledge of the chasm.
It was a terrific struggle for life. The rope was of immense length, and, deep as I had descended, there was yet an immeasurable gulf below me. The darkness of the chasm prevented the gnome above from seeing his victim, though I could see him well enough. When he severed the rope he knew none other than that I had already been precipitated into the maws of the gnomes below. When, therefore, lacerated and exhausted, I reappeared at the top, the utmost consternation and chagrin were visible in the features of the wretch. Too astonished, perhaps, to think of working another charm upon me, the ogre pounced upon me like a tiger on his prey, and a terrific tussle ensued—a tussle for life and death.
I soon found I was no match for my misshapen, but powerful, adversary. I was soon worsted. Every moment I expected to be my last.
"Can the Almighty allow the fiends to triumph over His own?" I asked myself, in my dying moments.
I offered up a short prayer, and gave myself up for lost. Suddenly a crash. A huge mass of rock above me had loosened. The demon let go his hold to save himself, but it was too late.
The deformed body of the crêtin lay crushed beneath the weight of the enormous fragment.
I myself escaped with but a slight graze on the head and shoulder. Had I been one whit less active, I must have shared the fate of my guide. For a moment I stood rooted to the spot, stupefied, bewildered; then, offering up a prayer of thanksgiving for my miraculous salvation, I departed on my way rejoicing.
The last sounds which rang in my ears were the voices of the hungry gnomes, calling out, "Give us our victim; we famish."
But I heeded them not, and continued my journey with a buoyant step. I had a long and tedious walk before me. At sundown, however, I reached the hotel from which I had started.