had I not considered it my duty to act the Good Samaritan to him.

I tried to persuade him by signs to rise, that I might support him to
the house, but he shook his head and groaned again, when it occurred to
me that his legs might be injured, and this I found to be but too true;
both his thighs were broken. Then an idea came happily to my mind, I
would fetch my donkey and cart, and so endeavour to get him by a
circuitous route to the house and put him to bed.

Away I went and harnessed my faithful servant to his wonderful cart, and
was back again in about twenty minutes; but that short period had bereft
me of my patient, for when I bent over him to see if he were better, I
found he was again senseless. Taking up the lantern so that it shed its
full light on his face, I at once saw, to my consternation, that he was
dead. His eyes were wide open, and his teeth clenched in such a ghastly
manner as to make me, for a brief time, tremble with horror to think I
was thus left alone with a corpse.

I threw a handful of straw over the awful countenance, and went home in
an unutterable frame of mind, as to me death has a most unnerving
effect. I laid down on my bed, after taking off my wet oil skins; but
sleep would not give me the oblivion I so craved till dawn. Sometimes I
dozed off, but only to dream horribly, so that I would awake in a great
perspiration, and with my nerves thoroughly unstrung, I would start to
my feet and gaze round the room, as if I expected some dread visitor. It
was an awful night for me.

About four o'clock in the morning I had just dozed off again, when a
loud gust of wind gave my window an extra hard rattle, which woke me. I
laid quite still, but presently heard a curious shuffling outside my
door, which made me sit upright upon my bed, with my eyes starting from
my head, and riveted upon the door, which gradually opened with a
peculiar sliding noise, little by little, in jerks, and as it did so I
could feel my hair move on my head, as if trying to stand on end with
horror, but as it was very long it could only move in locks like
writhing eels. Little by little the door opened, and I expected to see
my black-bearded dead giant, with the awful face enter. I looked
instinctively near the top of the door for the face to show itself; but
such an awful visitant I was not doomed to see, though in his place, and
much nearer the floor, appeared a black head surmounted by a pair of
pointed horns. My eyes see