my apple was not fit to eat?"

"One bad apple may grow on the best tree," I said.

Whether he perceived my meaning I cannot tell, but he made a stride
nearer, and I stood on my guard. He delayed his assault, however, until
a second giant, much like him, who had been stealing up behind me, was
close enough, when he rushed upon me. I met him with a good blow in the
face, but the other struck me on the back of the head, and between them
I was soon overpowered.

They dragged me into the wood above the valley, where their tribe
lived--in wretched huts, built of fallen branches and a few stones. Into
one of these they pushed me, there threw me on the ground, and kicked
me. A woman was present, who looked on with indifference.

I may here mention that during my captivity I hardly learned to
distinguish the women from the men, they differed so little. Often I
wondered whether I had not come upon a sort of fungoid people, with just
enough mind to give them motion and the expressions of anger and greed.
Their food, which consisted of tubers, bulbs, and fruits, was to me
inexpressibly disagreeable, but nothing offended them so much as to show
dislike to it. I was cuffed by the women and kicked by the men because I
would not swallow it.

I lay on the floor that night hardly able to move, but I slept a good
deal, and woke a little refreshed. In the morning they dragged me to the
valley, and tying my feet, with a long rope, to a tree, put a flat stone
with a saw-like edge in my left hand. I shifted it to the right; they
kicked me, and put it again in the left; gave me to understand that I
was to scrape the bark off every branch that had no fruit on it; kicked
me once more, and left me.

I set about the dreary work in the hope that by satisfying them I should
be left very much to myself--to make my observations and choose my time
for escape. Happily one of the dwarf-trees grew close by me, and
every other minute I plucked and ate a small fruit, which wonderfully
refreshed and strengthened me.

CHAPTER XIII. THE LITTLE ONES

I had been at work but a few moments, when I heard small voices near me,
and presently the Little Ones, as I soon found they called themselves,
came creeping out from among the tiny trees that like brushwood filled
the spaces between the big ones. In a minute there were scores and
scores about me. I made signs that the giants had but just left me,
and were not far off; but they laughed, and told me t