ng writhings.

Away--away went the ferocious animal heading toward the sea--careering,
thundering on, as if intent on plunging into the silent depths, and
there ending its course in a watery grave.

But no: death yawns not for the Wehr-Wolf! Scarcely have its feet
touched the verge of the water, when the monster wheels round and
continues its whirlwind way without for an instant relaxing one tittle
of its speed. Away--away, through the fruit-bearing groves, clearing for
itself a path of ruin and havoc,--scattering the gems of the trees, and
breaking down the richly-laden vines; away--away flies the monster,
hideous howls bursting from its foaming mouth. The birds scream and
whistle wildly, as startled from their usual tranquil retreats, they
spread their gay and gaudy plumage, and go with gushing sound through
the evening air. He reaches the bank of a stream, and bounds along its
pleasant margin, trampling to death noble swans which vainly seek to
evade the fury of the rushing monster.

Away--away toward the forest hurries the Wehr-Wolf--impelled, lashed on
by an invincible scourge, and filling the woods with its appalling
yells--while its mouth scatters foam like thick flakes of snow. Hark,
there is an ominous rustling in one of the trees of the forest; and the
monster seems to instinctively know the danger which menaces it. But
still its course is not changed;--it seems not to exercise its own will
in shaping its course. Down the tremendous snake flings itself from the
tree--and in an instant its hideous coils are wound round the foaming,
steaming, palpitating body of the wolf. The air is rent with the yell of
agony that bursts from the throat of the horrified monster as it tumbles
over and over, as if it had run to the length of a tether--for the snake
clings with its tail to the bough from which it has darted down. But the
yielding of the wolf is only momentary; up--up it springs again--and
away,--away it careers, more madly, more desperately, more ferociously,
if possible, than before.

And the snake? Oh! poor, weak and powerless was even that dread reptile
of forty feet in length, when combated with a monster lashed on and also
protected by invisible fiends. For, as the wolf sped on again, the boa
was dragged as if by a thousand horses from its coiling hold upon the
bough--and shaken, lacerated, and affrighted, the hideous reptile
unwound itself from the ferocious animal, and fell powerless on the
grass, where