f showed him to be different from our
human breed. For whatever else the human pair of eyes may reveal, it
reveals the looker.

The eyes of this creature revealed nothing of itself except that it
was watching me narrowly. I could not even be sure of its sex, though
I believe it to have been a male, and shall hereafter treat of it as
such. I could see that he was young; I thought about my own age. He
was very pale, without being at all sickly--indeed, health and vigour
and extreme vivacity were implicit in every line and expressed in
every act; he was clear-skinned, but almost colourless. The shadow
under his chin, I remember, was bluish. His eyes were round, when not
narrowed by that closeness of his scrutiny of me, and though probably
brown, showed to be all black, with pupil indistinguishable from iris.
The effect upon me was of black, vivid black, unintelligent
eyes--which see intensely but cannot translate. His hair was dense and
rather long. It covered his ears and touched his shoulders. It was
pushed from his forehead sideways in a thick, in a solid fold, as if
it had been the corner of a frieze cape thrown back. It was dark hair,
but not black; his neck was very thin. I don't know how he was
dressed--I never noticed such things; but in colour he must have been
inconspicuous, since I had been looking at him for a good time without
seeing him at all. A sleeveless tunic, I think, which may have been
brown, or grey, or silver-white. I don't know. But his knees were
bare--that I remember; and his arms were bare from the shoulder.

I standing, he squatting on his heels, the pair of us looked full at
one another. I was not frightened, no more was he. I was excited, and
full of interest; so, I think, was he. My heart beat double time. Then
I saw, with a curious excitement, that between his knees he held a
rabbit, and that with his left hand he had it by the throat. Now, what
is extraordinary to me about this discovery is that there was nothing
shocking in it.

I saw the rabbit's wild and panic-blown eye, I saw the bright white
rim of it, and recognised its little added terror of me even in the
midst of its anguish. That must have been the conventional fright of a
beast of chase, an instinct to fear rather than an emotion; for of
emotions the poor thing must have been having its fill. It was not
till I saw its mouth horribly open, its lips curled back to show its
shelving teeth that I could have guessed at what it was