he wood they went all day, deeper and deeper. They saw the
skeleton of some early Georgian poacher nailed to a door in an oak
tree; sometimes they saw a fairy scuttle away from them; once Tonker
stepped heavily on a hard, dry stick, after which they both lay still
for twenty minutes. And the sunset flared full of omens through the
tree trunks, and night fell, and they came by fitful starlight, as
Nuth had foreseen, to that lean, high house where the gnoles so
secretly dwelt.

All was so silent by that unvalued house that the faded courage of
Tonker flickered up, but to Nuth's experienced sense it seemed too
silent; and all the while there was that look in the sky that was
worse than a spoken doom, so that Nuth, as is often the case when men
are in doubt, had leisure to fear the worst. Nevertheless he did not
abandon the business, but sent the likely lad with the instruments of
his trade by means of the ladder to the old green casement. And the
moment that Tonker touched the withered boards, the silence that,
though ominous, was earthly, became unearthly like the touch of a
ghoul. And Tonker heard his breath offending against that silence, and
his heart was like mad drums in a night attack, and a string of one of
his sandals went tap on a rung of a ladder, and the leaves of the
forest were mute, and the breeze of the night was still; and Tonker
prayed that a mouse or a mole might make any noise at all, but not a
creature stirred, even Nuth was still. And then and there, while yet
he was undiscovered, the likely lad made up his mind, as he should
have done long before, to leave those colossal emeralds where they
were and have nothing further to do with the lean, high house of the
gnoles, but to quit this sinister wood in the nick of time and retire
from business at once and buy a place in the country. Then he
descended softly and beckoned to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched him
through knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees, and the
unearthly silence gave way, as it were with a grace, to the rapid
screams of Tonker as they picked him up from behind--screams that came
faster and faster until they were incoherent. And where they took him
it is not good to ask, and what they did with him I shall not say.

Nuth looked on for a while from the corner of the house with a mild
surprise on his face as he rubbed his chin, for the trick of the holes
in the trees was new to him; then he stole nimbly away through the
dr