my orders? Is this the mouldy
bread and muddy water, with which alone it was my command thou shouldst
sustain that puny mortal? But I'll--' Here raising him aloft, he was
about to dash him to the ground, when suddenly revolving in his wicked
thoughts, that if at once he should destroy his patient slave, his
cruelty to him must also have an end, he paused--and then recovering, he
stretched out his arm, and bringing the little trembler near his glaring
eyes, he thus subjoins: 'No; I'll not destroy thy wretched life; but
thou shalt waste thy weary days in a dark dungeon, as far remote from
the least dawn of light as from thy loved companion. And I myself will
carefully supply you both so equally with mouldy bread and water,
that each by his own sufferings shall daily know what his dear friend
endures.' So saying, he hastened with him to his deepest dungeon; and
having thrust him in, he doubly barred the iron door. And now again
retiring to his couch, this new-wrought mischief, which greatly
gratified his raging mind, soon sunk him down into a sound and heavy
sleep. The reason this horrid monster had not long ago devoured his
little captive (for he thought him a delicious morsel) was, that he
might never want an object at hand to gratify his cruelty. For though
extremely great was his voracious hunger, yet greater still was his
desire of tormenting; and oftentimes when he had teased, beat, and
tortured the poor gentle Mignon, so as to force from him tears, and
sometimes a soft complaint, he would, with a malicious sneer, scornfully
reproach him in the following words: 'Little does it avail to whine, to
blubber, or complain; for, remember, abject wretch,

I am a giant, and I can eat thee:
Thou art a dwarf, and thou canst not eat me.'

When Mignon was thus alone, he threw himself on the cold ground,
bemoaning his unhappy fate. However, he soon recollected that patience
and resignation were his only succour in this distressful condition; not
doubting but that, as goodness cannot always suffer, he should in time
meet with some unforeseen deliverance from the savage power of the
inhuman Barbarico.

Whilst the gentle Mignon was endeavouring to comfort himself in his
dungeon with these good reflections, he suddenly perceived, at a little
distance from him, a small glimmering light. Immediately he rose from
the ground, and going towards it, found that it shone through a little
door that had been left at jar, which led