to try and stop him.
Guy Fawkes! Why don't you go and fight like he did?"

Fawkes--for this was indeed the keeper's name--sprang at her clumsily;
his knee was badly bruised. But Flamby eluded him with ease, gliding
behind the trunk of a friendly oak and peering out at the enraged man
elfishly.

"When are they going to burn you?" she inquired.

Fawkes laid his gun upon the ground, without removing his gaze from the
flushed mocking face, and began cautiously to advance. He was a man for
whom Flamby in the ordinary way entertained a profound contempt, but
there was that in his slinking foxy manner which vaguely disturbed her.
For long enough there had been wordy warfare between them, but to-day
Flamby realised that she had aroused something within the man which had
never hitherto shown upon the surface; and into his eyes had come a
light which since she had passed her thirteenth year she had sometimes
seen and hated in the eyes of men, but had never thought to see and fear
in the eyes of Fawkes. For the first time within her memory she realised
that Bluebell Hollow was a very lonely spot.

"You daren't hit me," she said, rather breathlessly. "I'd play hell."

"I don't want to hit you," replied Fawkes, still advancing; "but you're
goin' to pay for that kick."

"I'll pay with another," snapped Flamby, her fiery nature reasserting
itself momentarily.

But despite the bravado, she was half fearful, and therefore some of her
inherent woodcraft deserted her, so much so that not noting a tuft of
ferns which uprose almost at her heels, she stepped quickly back,
stumbled, and Fawkes had his arms about her, holding her close.

"Now what can you do?" he sneered, his crafty face very close to hers.

"This," breathed Flamby, her colour departing again.

She seized his ear in her teeth and bit him savagely. Fawkes uttered a
hoarse scream of pain, and a second time released her, clapping his hand
to the wounded member.

"You damned witch cat," he said. "I could kill you."

Flamby leapt from him, panting. "You couldn't!" she taunted. "All you
can kill is rabbits!"

Through an opening in the dense greenwood a ray of sunlight spilled its
gold upon the carpet of Bluebell Hollow, and Flamby stood, defiant, head
thrown back, where the edge of the ray touched her wonderful, disordered
hair and magically turned it to sombre fire. Venomous yet, but doubtful,
Fawkes confronted her, now holding his handkerchief to his ear. And so
t