emed to come from malignant spirits
of the air.

They had scarcely entered the wood when the storm became furious; and
the trees, swaying and beating with their branches against one another,
seemed possessed of a supernatural madness, and engaged in wild
conflict, as if there were life and passion in them; and their broken,
decayed arms groaned like things in torment. The terror of these sights
and sounds was too much for poor Abel; it nearly crazed him; and he set
up a shriek that for a moment drowned the noise of the storm. It
startled Paul; and when he looked at him, the boy's face was of a
ghostly whiteness. The rain had drenched him to the skin; his clothes
clung to his lean body, that shook as if it would come apart; his eyes
flew wildly, and his teeth chattered against each other. The fears and
torture of his mind gave something unearthly to his look, that made Paul
start back. "Abel--boy--fiend--speak! What has seized you?"

"They told me so," cried Abel--"I've done it--I led the way for
you--they're coming, they're coming--we're lost!"

"Peace, fool," said Paul, trying to shake off the power he felt Abel
gaining over him, "and find us a shelter if you can."

"There's only the hut," said Abel, "and I wouldn't go into that if it
rained fire."

"And why not?"

"I once felt that it was for me to go, and I went so near as to see in
at the door. And I saw something in the hut--it was not a man, for it
flitted by the opening just like a shadow; and I heard two muttering
something to one another; it wasn't like other sounds, for as soon as I
heard it, it made me stop my ears. I couldn't stay any longer, and I ran
till I cleared the wood. Oh! 'tis His biding-place, when He comes to the
wood."

"And is it of His own building?" asked Paul, sarcastically.

"No," answered Abel; "'twas built by the two wood-cutters; and one of
them came to a bloody end, and they say the other died the same night,
foaming at the mouth like one possessed. There it is," said he, almost
breathless, as he crouched down and pointed at the hut under the trees.
"Do not go, sir," he said, catching hold of the skirts of Paul's
coat,--"I've never dared go nigher since."--"Let loose, boy," cried
Paul, striking Abel's hand from his coat, "I'll not be fooled with."
Abel, alarmed at being left alone, crawled after Paul as far as he dared
go; then taking hold of him once more, made a supplicating motion to
him to stop; he was afraid to speak. Paul