by kicking with the other. Then he realised he had
the broken water-bottle at his hand, and, snatching it, he struggled into
a sitting posture, and feeling in the darkness towards his foot, gripped a
velvety ear, like the ear of a big cat. He had seized the water-bottle by
its neck and brought it down with a shivering crash upon the head of the
strange beast. He repeated the blow, and then stabbed and jabbed with the
jagged end of it, in the darkness, where he judged the face might be.

The small teeth relaxed their hold, and at once Woodhouse pulled his leg
free and kicked hard. He felt the sickening feel of fur and bone giving
under his boot. There was a tearing bite at his arm, and he struck over it
at the face, as he judged, and hit damp fur.

There was a pause; then he heard the sound of claws; and the dragging of a
heavy body away from him over the observatory floor. Then there was
silence, broken only by his own sobbing breathing, and a sound like
licking. Everything was black except the parallelogram of the blue
skylight with the luminous dust of stars, against which the end of the
telescope now appeared in silhouette. He waited, as it seemed, an
interminable time.

Was the thing coming on again? He felt in his trouser-pocket for some
matches, and found one remaining. He tried to strike this, but the floor
was wet, and it spat and went out. He cursed. He could not see where the
door was situated. In his struggle he had quite lost his bearings. The
strange beast, disturbed by the splutter of the match, began to move
again. "Time!" called Woodhouse, with a sudden gleam of mirth, but the
thing was not coming at him again. He must have hurt it, he thought, with
the broken bottle. He felt a dull pain in his ankle. Probably he was
bleeding there. He wondered if it would support him if he tried to stand
up. The night outside was very still. There was no sound of any one
moving. The sleepy fools had not heard those wings battering upon the
dome, nor his shouts. It was no good wasting strength in shouting. The
monster flapped its wings and startled him into a defensive attitude. He
hit his elbow against the seat, and it fell over with a crash. He cursed
this, and then he cursed the darkness.

Suddenly the oblong patch of starlight seemed to sway to and fro. Was he
going to faint? It would never do to faint. He clenched his fists and set
his teeth to hold himself together. Where had the door got to? It occurred
to him