the way it crouched half-hidden behind the bushes, prevented this.
So he stood, poised ready to run, and yet waiting, hoping, indeed
expecting every minute a sign of friendliness and help.

In this way the two faced each other silently for some time, until the
feeling of terror gradually stole deeper into the boy's heart and began
to rob him of full power over his muscles. He wondered if he would be
able to run when the time came, and whether he could run fast enough.
This was how it first showed itself, this suggestion of insidious fear.
Would he be able to keep up the start he had? Would it chase him? Would
it run like a man or like an animal, on four legs or on two? He wished
he could see more clearly what it was. He still stood his ground
pluckily, facing it and waiting, but the fear, once admitted to his
mind, was gaining strength, and he began to feel cold and shivery. Then
suddenly the tension came to an end. In two strides the figure came up
close to his side, and the same second Jimbo was lifted off his feet and
borne swiftly away across the field.

He felt quite unable to offer the least resistance, and at the same time
he felt a sense of relief that something had happened at last. He was
still not sure that the figure was unkind; only its shape filled him
with a feeling that was certainly the beginning of real horror. It was
the shape of a man, he thought, but of a very large and ill-constructed
man; for it certainly had moved on two legs and had caught him up in a
pair of tremendously strong arms. But there was something else it had
besides arms, for a kind of soft cloak hung all round it and wrapped the
boy from head to foot, preventing him seeing his captor properly, and at
the same time filling his body with a kind of warm drowsiness that
mitigated his active fear and made him rather like the sensation of
being carried along so easily and so fast.

But was he being carried? The pace they were going was amazing, and he
moved as easily as a sailing boat, and with the same swinging motion.
Could it be some animal like a horse after all? Jimbo tried to see more,
but found it impossible to free himself from the folds of the enveloping
substance, and meanwhile they were swinging forward at what seemed a
tremendous pace over fields and ditches, through hedges, and down long
lanes.

The odours of earth, and dew-drenched grass, and opening flowers came to
him. He heard the birds singing, and felt the cool morn