sence. When it winded them, as it might do any moment, then it would
come straight for them. There was something terribly unnerving in this
feeling of being hunted, and that by an enemy whose strength they had no
opportunity of estimating.

As the retreating sound grew fainter, Haviland suggested climbing a
tree. There was no such thing as playing the ghost again. That was all
very well with a keeper, but it wouldn't do for a moment with a dog.
Besides, the brute could maul them horribly even before the keeper
should arrive on the scene; but Anthony negatived the suggestion.

"No climb tree," he said. "I kill him. Look, he come again."

It was even as he had said. The rush of a heavy body through the
undergrowth, this time on the other side of the ride, and then, from the
darkness beyond, there sprang forth into the moonlit ride an enormous
bull-mastiff.

Terrible to a degree looked the formidable brute, his fangs exposed in a
white line across the blackness of his huge bullet head: and the great
muscular brindled body looked powerful enough to bring down a bullock
with ease. Why, these two would simply be torn to pieces.

As the brute sprang into the light it paused a moment. Then, uttering
one deep, cavernous "gowl" it came straight for them.

But at the moment it began its rush, there darted forth into the light a
form, lithe and dark. Something flashed aloft, and at the same time
descended--and then animal and human were mixed up together in a
struggling mass upon the ground. The descendant of a long line of
warriors knew better than to give his antagonist the choice of battle
ground, and did not prefer to fight in the dark, wherefore he had hurled
himself straight at the onrushing monster--stabbing furiously with his
improvised sheep-shear assegai.

Not ineffectually either, but the sheer weight of the heavy muscular
brute had hurled him flat.

It had all been done with a rapidity that was almost lightning-like.
Haviland, witnessing it, felt all in a maze for a moment, realising that
he was unarmed--for the air-gun of course would be about as effective
against such an adversary as this as the common or school pea-shooter.
Yet he bethought him of a weapon more useful still, and without
hesitation he advanced upon the struggling pair, and his right fist was
armed with a knuckle-duster of the most formidable kind, each knuckle
constituting a sharp point--a terrible implement, one moderately strong