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wrenched himself free, and ran on towards the ditch which, as he had had occasion to remember marked the boundary of Dutch Michael's domain, and no sooner did he spy it than he cried out with what breath he had left in his lungs: "Dutch Michael! Master Dutch Michael!" and immediately there stood before him the gigantic form of the raftsman, pole in hand. "So, you've come!" cried Michael, with a laugh. "Did they want to strip the skin from your back in order to sell it for the benefit of your creditors? Well, don't worry about it; as I have already told you, for your troubles you have to thank that sanctimonious little hypocrite, the Glassmanikin. When one gives at all, it should be with a lavish hand, and not stingily as is that niggard's wont. But come," he continued, turning towards the forest, "follow me to my house, and we will see if we cannot strike a bargain." "Strike a bargain?" thought Peter. "What can he get out of me? What have I to offer him? Must I serve him in some way; or what else will he require of me?" At first, they climbed a steep incline which ended abruptly on the edge of a dark, deep, precipitous ravine. Dutch Michael sprang down from rock to rock as easily as down a broad staircase; and Peter nearly fainted with terror when he perceived how the form of the demon, as soon as the latter's foot had touched bottom, shot up to the height of a church steeple. Then the monster stretched forth an arm as long as a weaver's beam, and a hand as broad as a large table, crying out in a deep voice that sounded like a death-knell: "Stand on my hand and take hold of my fingers, so that you do not fall." Trembling all over, Peter did as he was bid, sitting down on the palm and steadying himself by grasping the gigantic thumb. Deep down into the bowels of the earth he descended, but to Peter's surprise it grew no darker; on the contrary, the daylight seemed to become more and more intense in the ravine, until his eyes could scarcely bear the glare of it. As Peter descended, Dutch Michael gradually decreased in size until when Peter had reached the ground the former had regained his normal stature, and there they stood before a house similar in all respects to those owned by well-to-do peasants in the Black Forest. The room, into which Peter was conducted, differed in no particular from the rooms of other Black Forest cottages, except that its appearance imparted a feeling of loneliness. The wooden clo
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