tood there pawing and
scraping, keeping up the while his gruesome moanings, his shrill bellow.
But there was now a note of savagery in these: whether it was that the
smell of blood, and a great deal of it, had worked him up, together with
the fact of finding himself all alone, so far as his kind went--his
voice took on that strange growling note which enraged cattle take on at
times, and then--look out for mischief. And the girl stood, absolutely
unprotected, the prostrate form of her friend lying there at her feet,
helpless. Had any been there to see it her face wore the same look that
it had worn as she stood holding the big stone ready to throw, what time
Elvesdon came between her and the great snake.

She let go the whip-lash with a resounding crack in the direction of the
menacing beast. He was of the large homed kind that would have been the
delight of a _Plaza de Toros_, and looked horribly formidable, tossing
his white sharp horns in the moonlight. Then he charged.

Edala did not yield an inch as she stood over the body of her friend.
She calculated her distance to a nicety, and as coolly as if she had
been fly-fishing, she sent out the whip-lash again. Fortunately the
charge was a half-hearted one, and the cutting _voerslag_, catching the
enemy full in the eyes, brought him up as sharp as though the cruel
_banderillas_ had suddenly been stuck in his withers in the _plaza_ in
old Spain. She gave him no law. Twice in rapid succession again she
gave him the _voerslag_, and the blinded beast, mad with pain, backed,
then trotted unsteadily away.

Edala's breathing came in spasmodic gasps as she watched him out of
sight, and the reaction made her knees tremble beneath her. Oh hang it!
She must keep up, she told herself. She could not afford to follow
Evelyn's example, or what would become of them both? So this girl, with
the glorious gold-crowned head, alone there under circumstances of peril
and horror, started to work out the situation for the safety of both.

"Come Evelyn. Pull yourself together, and get up!" she cried, half
carrying, half dragging the other to the house door. "Lord! I shall
have to shy a bucket of water over her yet!" she added almost savagely,
panting from her exertion.

But this drastic remedy proved unnecessary, for Evelyn opened her eyes,
then sat up, staring about her in a dazed kind of way.

"What is it? I've been dreaming--something horrible," she said.

"Yes, you have