pected
meeting. When they had gone a little way, Victor suddenly stood still.

"Just wait a moment," he said. "I must go and have a look at the bull;
I'm sorry for it, poor brute!"

The expression of Anna's face changed, and the corners of her eyes grew
bloodshot. "All right! I'll wait," she said, with a savage and malicious
glance at the pilot.

Victor gazed at her sadly, for he knew that she had told him an untruth.
But he followed her. There was something extraordinary about her walk,
and all at once the whole of his left side grew as cold as ice.

When they had proceeded a little further, Victor stopped again.

"Give me your hand," he said. "No, the left one." He saw that she was
not wearing her engagement ring.

"Where's your ring?" he asked.

"I've lost it," she replied.

"You are my Anna, and yet you are not," he exclaimed. "A stranger has
taken possession of you."

As he said these words, she looked at him with a side-long glance, and
all at once he realised that her eyes were not human, but the blood-shot
eyes of a bull; and then he understood.

"Begone, witch!" he cried, and breathed into her face.

If you could only have seen what happened now! The would-be Anna was
immediately transformed, her face grew green and yellow like gall, and
she burst with rage; at the next moment a black rabbit jumped over the
bilberry bushes and disappeared in the wood.

Victor stood alone in the perplexing, bewildering forest, but he was
not afraid. "I will go on," he thought, "and if I should meet the devil
himself, I will not be afraid; I shall say the Lord's Prayer, and that
will go a long way towards protecting me."

He trudged on and presently he came to a cottage. He knocked; the door
was opened by an old woman; he inquired whether he could stay the night.
He could stay, if he liked, but the old dame had nothing to offer him
but a small attic, which was only so so.

Victor did not mind what it was like, as long as it was a place where he
could sleep.

When they were agreed about the price, he followed her upstairs to the
attic. A huge wasp's nest hung right over the bed, and the old dame
began to make excuses for harbouring such guests.

"It doesn't matter in the least," interrupted the pilot, "wasps are like
human beings, quite inoffensive until you irritate them. Perhaps you
keep snakes, too?"

"Well, there are some, of course."

"I thought so; they like the warmth of the bed, so we shall get on. A