ucceeded, and audaciously mounted to
Iden's knee. Another quickly followed, and there the pair of them
feasted on the crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of his
trousers.

One great brown hand was in his pocket, close to them--a mighty hand,
beside which they were pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What
would have been the value of their lives between a finger and thumb that
could crack a ripe and strong-shelled walnut?

The size--the mass--the weight of his hand alone was as a hill
overshadowing them; his broad frame like the Alps; his head high above
as a vast rock that overhung the valley.

His thumb-nail--widened by labour with spade and axe--his thumb-nail
would have covered either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
Ajax.

Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence. He was so still, so
_very_ still--quiescent--they feared him no more than they did the wall;
they could not hear his breathing.

Had they been gifted with human intelligence that very fact would have
excited their suspicions. Why so very, _very_ still? Strong men, wearied
by work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily. Even in firm sleep
we move a little now and then, a limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or
stretches itself.

But Iden was so still it was evident he was really wide awake and
restraining his breath, and exercising conscious command over his
muscles, that this scene might proceed undisturbed.

Now the strangeness of the thing was in this way: Iden set traps for
mice in the cellar and the larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the door at the same
instant, and the wretched captive was dashed to death upon the stone
flags of the floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in one place,
and fed them in another.

A long psychological discussion might be held on this apparent
inconsistency, but I shall leave analysis to those who like it, and go
on recording facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing is
consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent it would have no
association with a living person.

From the merest thin slit, as it were, between his eyelids, Iden watched
the mice feed and run about his knees till, having eaten every crumb,
they descended his leg to the floor.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.

HE was not asleep--he was thinking. Sometimes, of course, it happened
that slumber was induced b