that the meaning of his words hardly
penetrated her mind. Whichever it may have been, with a low cry of,
"Oh, you beauty!" she stepped quickly towards Vengeance, one of the
best hounds in the pack, a fierce-looking beast with a handsome head
and sullen month, who had been standing apart, showing no disposition
to join the clamorous, slobbering throng at the gate.

His hackles rose at Nan's sudden movement towards him, and as she
stretched out her hand to stroke him the sulky head lifted with a
thunderous growl. As though at a given signal the whole pack seemed to
gather round her.

Simultaneously Vengeance leaped, and Nan was only conscious of the
ripping of her garments, the sudden pressure of hot bodies round her,
and of a blurred sound of hounds baying, the vicious cracking of a
whip, and the voices of men shouting.

She sank almost to her knees, instinctively shielding her head and
throat with her arms, borne to the ground by the force of the great
padded feet which had struck her. Open jaws, red like blood, and
gleaming ivory fangs fenced her round. Instantaneously there flashed
through her mind the recollection of something she had once been
told--that if one hound turns on you, the whole pack will turn with
him--like wolves.

This was death, then--death by those worrying, white-fanged mouths--the
tearing of soft, warm flesh from her living limbs and afterwards the
crushing of her bones between those powerful jaws.

She struck out, struggling gamely to her feet, and visioned Denman
cursing and slashing at the hounds as he drove them off. But
Vengeance, the untamed, heedless of the lash which scored his back a
dozen times, caught at her ankle and she pitched head foremost into the
stream of hot-breathed mouths and struggling bodies. She felt a huge
weight fling itself upon her--Vengeance, springing again at his
prey--and even as she waited for the agony of piercing fangs plunged
into her flesh, Trenby's voice roared in her ears as he caught the big,
powerful brute by its throat and by sheer, immense physical strength
dragged the hound off her.

Meanwhile the second whip had rushed out from his cottage to render
assistance and the whistling of the long-lashed hunting-crops drove
through the air, gradually forcing the yelping hounds into submission.
In the midst of the shouting and commotion Nan felt herself lifted up
by Roger as easily as though she were a baby, and at the same moment
the whirling lash