II
It was hardly sun-up on the following morning when the three children - Trézinie, Cami and the little negress, La Fringante - were filling big, flat Indian baskets from the abundance of brilliant flowers that studded the hill.
In their eagerness they had ascended the slope and penetrated deep into the forest without thought of M'sieur Michel or of his abode. Suddenly, in the dense wood, they came upon his hut - low, forbidding, seeming to scowl rebuke upon them for their intrusion.
La Fringante dropped her basket, and, with a cry, fled. Cami looked as if he wanted to do the same. But Trézinie, after the first tremor, saw that the ogre himself was away. The wooden shutter of the one window was closed. The door, so low that even a small man must have stooped to enter it, was secured wi
