ell designs.

'Hell roast thee!' cried an ugly old witch-thing; 'thou'rt the
meddlesome body that spoils all our brews.'

'Out on thee!' shrieked the bogle-bodies; 'if 'twere not for thee we'd
have the marsh to ourselves.'

And there was a great clamour--as out-of-tune as out-of-tune could be.
All the things of darkness raised their harsh and cracked voices against
the Bright One of the sky. 'Ha, ha!' and 'Ho, ho!' and 'He, he!' mingled
with chuckles of fiendish glee, until it seemed as if the very trickles
and gurgles of the bog were joining in the orgy of hate.

'Burn her with corpse-lights!' yelled the witch.

'Ha, ha! He, he!' came the chorus of evil creatures.

'Truss her up and stifle her!' screamed the creeping things. 'Spin webs
round her!' And the spiders of the night swarmed all over her.

'Sting her to death!' said the Scorpion King at the head of his brood.

'Ho, ho! He, he!' And, as each vile thing had something to say about it,
a horrible, screeching dispute arose, while the captive Moon crouched
shuddering at the foot of the snag and gave herself up as lost.

The dim grey light of the early dawn found them still hissing and
clawing and screeching at one another as to the best way to dispose of
the captive. Then, when the first rosy ray shot up from the Sun, they
grew afraid. Some scuttled away, but those who remained hastened to do
something--anything that would smother the light of the Moon. The only
thing they could think of now was to bury her in the mud,--bury her
deep. They were all agreed on this as the quickest way.

So they clutched her with skinny fingers and pushed her down into the
black mud beneath the water at the foot of the snag. When they had all
stamped upon her, the bogle-bodies ran quickly and fetched a big black
stone which they hurled on top of her to keep her down. Then the old
witch called two will-o'-the-wisps from the darkest part of the
marshes, and, when they came dancing and glancing above the pools and
quicks, she bade them keep watch by the grave of the Moon, and, if she
tried to get out, to sound an alarm.

Then the horrid things crept away from the morning light, chuckling to
themselves over the funeral of the Moon, and only wishing they could
bury the Sun in the same way; but that was a little too much to hope
for, and besides, all respectable Horrors of the Bog ought to be asleep
in bed during the Sun's journey across the sky.

The poor Moon was now buried de