ross a few of them; and nowhere were
they to be found in such large numbers as in Glimminge castle.

When an animal folk die out, it is generally the human kind who are the
cause of it; but that was not the case in this instance. The people had
certainly struggled with the black rats, but they had not been able to
do them any harm worth mentioning. Those who had conquered them were an
animal folk of their own kind, who were called gray rats.

These gray rats had not lived in the land since time immemorial, like
the black rats, but descended from a couple of poor immigrants who
landed in Malmoe from a Libyan sloop about a hundred years ago. They were
homeless, starved-out wretches who stuck close to the harbour, swam
among the piles under the bridges, and ate refuse that was thrown in the
water. They never ventured into the city, which was owned by the black
rats.

But gradually, as the gray rats increased in number they grew bolder.
At first they moved over to some waste places and condemned old houses
which the black rats had abandoned. They hunted their food in gutters
and dirt heaps, and made the most of all the rubbish that the black rats
did not deign to take care of. They were hardy, contented and fearless;
and within a few years they had become so powerful that they undertook
to drive the black rats out of Malmoe. They took from them attics,
cellars and storerooms, starved them out or bit them to death for they
were not at all afraid of fighting.

When Malmoe was captured, they marched forward in small and large
companies to conquer the whole country. It is almost impossible to
comprehend why the black rats did not muster themselves into a great,
united war-expedition to exterminate the gray rats, while these were
still few in numbers. But the black rats were so certain of their power
that they could not believe it possible for them to lose it. They sat
still on their estates, and in the meantime the gray rats took from them
farm after farm, city after city. They were starved out, forced out,
rooted out. In Skane they had not been able to maintain themselves in a
single place except Glimminge castle.

The old castle had such secure walls and such few rat passages led
through these, that the black rats had managed to protect themselves,
and to prevent the gray rats from crowding in. Night after night, year
after year, the struggle had continued between the aggressors and the
defenders; but the black rats had