The Mountain Dwarf looked at the man with his small cruel eyes. "Ha! ha!" he yelled. "You dare defend them. Good! We will send you to the mines and work you hard. Now let every man take a stone and let him aim it well."
All the servants trembled, and the poor fellow who had pleaded for the miners fell on his knees with loud sobs. But not one man stooped to raise a stone.
"What!" thundered the Dwarf. "You dare defy me! Then I'll stone them down myself. Their ugly huts have stood in sight of my castle long enough."
With fiendish glee he danced from hut to hut, hurling stones that giants could barely move as though they were but pebbles, until not one log was left upon another. Then he clapped his hands and snapped his fingers in the air, and led the servants home. The Mountain Dwarf was in an ecstasy of delight, and roared with laughter, when the women and children crept timidly from the woods and sobbed over their ruined homes.
When the moon was at its full, and the castle lay shimmering in its yellow light with the pale soft tints of an opal, a long still line of men crept up the hill and through the beautiful gardens, close up to the castle walls. Their faces were fierce yet quiet, as though some great purpose was controlling their actions, and behind them some little distance came the women and children that had wept over the fallen settlement. They could see the Mountain Dwarf on his silver bed with its silken draperies, and even in sleep his lips wore the sneering smile of triumph they had worn a few hours earlier. The men looked from the bed to the stones in their hands, and then at one another.
"It is time," said a low voice, and every right arm stretched itself up and backward and flung a stone. There was a terrible crash.
"Again!" said the same low voice, and again with military precision the right hands went up and back, and the stones flew, and again came that terrible crash.
The Mountain Dwarf, stunned and bruised and bleeding, raised himself in his bed.
"Who is it?" he moaned feebly.
"The miners," came back in a terrible shout.