Here the trees looked strange and made strange black shadows, and he thought that the strange people of the wood were perhaps now roaming about and would find him there.

He did not want them to find him fast asleep; it was better to be awake, so that when they came he could jump up and run away and hide himself from them.

Once or twice a slight rustling sound made him start and think that at last some one was coming to him, stealing softly so as to catch him unawares, but he could see nothing moving, and when he held his breath to listen there was no sound.
[Illustration: ] Then all at once, just when he had almost dropped off, a great cry sounded at a distance, and made him start up wide awake again.
"O look! look! look!" cried the voice in a tone so deep and strange and powerful that no one could have heard it without terror, for it seemed to be uttered by some forest monster twenty times bigger than an ordinary man.

In a moment an answer came from another part of the wood.

"What's that ?" cried the answering voice; and then another voice cried, and then others far and near, all shouting "What's that ?" and for only answer the first voice shouted once more, "O look! look! look!" Poor Martin, trembling with fright, crouched lower down in his mossy bed, thinking that the awful people of the forest must have seen him, and would be upon him in a few moments.