nd
fortitude; and ashamed of his weakness, he reached forward, and stooping
down looked into the cavity. He started as his eye fell on the object
within it. "Who and what are you?" cried he. "Come out, and let me see
whether you are man or devil." And out crawled a miserable boy, looking
as if shrunk up with fear and famine. "Speak, and tell me who you are,
and what you do here," said Paul. The poor fellow's jaws moved and
quivered, but he did not utter a sound. His spare frame shook, and his
knees knocked against each other as in an ague fit. Paul looked at him
for a moment. His loose shambly frame was nearly bare to the bones, his
light sunburnt hair hung long and straight round his thin jaws and white
eyes, that shone with a delirious glare, as if his mind had been
terror-struck. There was a sickly, beseeching smile about his mouth.
His skin, between the freckles, was as white as a leper's, and his teeth
long and yellow. He appeared like one who had witnessed the destruction
about him, and was the only living thing spared, to make death seem more
horrible.

"Who put you here to starve?" said Paul to him.

"Nobody, sir."

"Why did you come, then?"

"Oh, I can't help it; I must come."

"Must! And why must you?" The boy looked round timidly, and crouching
near Paul, said in a tremulous, low voice, his eyes glancing fearfully
through the chasm, "'Tis He, 'tis He that makes me!" Paul turned
suddenly round, and saw before him for the first time the deserted tract
of pine wood and sand which has been described. "Who and where is he?"
asked Paul impatiently, expecting to see some one.

"There, there, in the wood yonder," answered the boy, crouching still
lower, and pointing with his finger, whilst his hand shook as if
palsied.

"I see nothing," said Paul, "but these pines. What possesses you? Why do
you shudder so, and look so pale? Do you take the shadows of the trees
for devils?"

"Don't speak of them. They'll be on me, if you talk of them here,"
whispered the boy eagerly. Drops of sweat stood on his brow from the
agony of terror he was in. As Paul looked at the lad, he felt something
like fear creeping over him. He turned his eyes involuntarily to the
wood again. "If we must not talk here," said he at last, "come along
with me, and tell me what all this means." The boy rose, and followed
close to Paul.

"Is it the Devil you have seen, that you shake so?"

"You have named him; I never must," said the boy. "I