under a lone oak-tree in the
meadow, the same tree that the hunted quarry had climbed as a last effort
towards safety. It had been a distasteful and seemingly ruthless deed,
but circumstances had demanded the doing of it. Octavian kept chickens;
at least he kept some of them; others vanished from his keeping, leaving
only a few bloodstained feathers to mark the manner of their going. The
tabby cat from the large grey house that stood with its back to the
meadow had been detected in many furtive visits to the hen-coups, and
after due negotiation with those in authority at the grey house a
sentence of death had been agreed on. "The children will mind, but they
need not know," had been the last word on the matter.

The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; in the
course of a few months he considered that he should have known their
names, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have been introduced to
their favourite toys. They remained however, as non-committal as the
long blank wall that shut them off from the meadow, a wall over which
their three heads sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had parents in
India--that much Octavian had learned in the neighbourhood; the children,
beyond grouping themselves garment-wise into sexes, a girl and two boys,
carried their life-story no further on his behoof. And now it seemed he
was engaged in something which touched them closely, but must be hidden
from their knowledge.

The poor helpless chickens had gone one by one to their doom, so it was
meet that their destroyer should come to a violent end; yet Octavian felt
some qualms when his share of the violence was ended. The little cat,
headed off from its wonted tracks of safety, had raced unfriended from
shelter to shelter, and its end had been rather piteous. Octavian walked
through the long grass of the meadow with a step less jaunty than usual.
And as he passed beneath the shadow of the high blank wall he glanced up
and became aware that his hunting had had undesired witnesses. Three
white set faces were looking down at him, and if ever an artist wanted a
threefold study of cold human hate, impotent yet unyielding, raging yet
masked in stillness, he would have found it in the triple gaze that met
Octavian's eye.

"I'm sorry, but it had to be done," said Octavian, with genuine apology
in his voice.

"Beast!"

The answer came from three throats with startling intensity.

Octavian felt that th