garret, saying to him, 'To-morrow morning, when all your comrades are gone,
I will take hold of you, and you shall see what I do to those who wish to
run away from here.'

"I leave you to imagine what a horrible night Gringalet passed. He hardly
closed his eyes; he wondered what Cut-in-half would do. At length he fell
asleep. But what a sleep! Then there was a dream, a frightful dream--that
is to say, the beginning--you will see. He dreamed that he was one of those
poor flies which he had so often saved from the spider's web, and that he,
in his turn, fell into a large and strong web, where he struggled with all
his strength without being able to escape; then he saw coming toward him
softly, cautiously, a kind of monster, which had the face of his master, on
a spider's body. My poor Gringalet began again to struggle, as you may
imagine; but the more efforts he made, the more he was entangled in the
toils, just like the poor flies. At length the spider approached--touched
him--and he felt the large, cold, and hairy paws of the monster encircle
him. He thought himself dead, but suddenly he heard a kind of humming
noise, clear and acute, and saw a little golden gnat, which had a kind of
sting as fine and brilliant as a diamond needle, flying round the spider in
a furious manner, and a voice (when I say voice, just imagine the voice of
a gnat!)-a voice said to him, 'Poor little fly! you have saved flies; the
spider shall not---'

"Unfortunately, Gringalet awoke with a start, and he saw not the end of the
dream; nevertheless, he was a little comforted, saying to himself, 'Perhaps
the golden gnat with the diamond sting would have killed the spider if I
had seen the end of the dream.'

"But Gringalet had need of all this to console himself, for, as the night
advanced, his fear returned so strongly that in the end he forgot his