... and, he knew well enough, on some
high ridge in the background squatted a young female beauty, with
flattened ears and waving tail, awaiting the caresses of the victor.

As he saw the head above him, to human eyes a shapeless silhouette, to
his eyes a grey-penciled picture perfect in all its details, he paused
in his stretching. Then he sat back, arranged his tail, and lifted his
head to answer. The cry that came from him, not yet _fortissimo_,
sounded in human ears beneath no more than a soft broken-hearted wail,
but to him who sat above it surpassed in insolence even his own
carefully modulated offensiveness.

Again the other answered, this time lifting himself to his full
height, sending a message along the nerves of his back that prickled
his own skin and passed out along the tail with an exquisite ripple of
movement. And once more came the answer from below.

So the preliminary challenge went on. Already in the voice of each
there had begun to show itself that faint note of hysteria that
culminates presently in a scream of anger and a torrent of spits,
leading again in their turn to an ominous silence and the first fierce
clawing blows at eyes and ears. In another instant the watcher above
would recoil for a moment as the swift rush was made up the trellis,
and then the battle would be joined: but that instant never came.
There fell a sudden silence; and he, peering down into the grey gloom,
chin on paws, and tail twitching eighteen inches behind, saw an
astonishing sight. His adversary had broken off in the midst of a long
crescendo cry, and was himself crouched flat upon the narrow wall
staring now not upwards, but downwards, diagonally, at a certain
curtained window eight feet below.

This was all very unusual and contrary to precedent. A dog, a human
hand armed with a missile, a furious minatory face--these things were
not present to account for the breach of etiquette. Vaguely he
perceived this, conscious only of inexplicability; but he himself also
ceased, and watched for developments.

Very slowly they came at first. That crouching body beneath was
motionless now; even the tail had ceased to twitch and hung limply
behind, dripping over the edge of the narrow wall into the
unfathomable pit of the garden; and as the watcher stared, he felt
himself some communication of the horror so apparent in the other's
attitude. Along his own spine, from neck to flank, ran the paralyzing
nervous movement; his own