, raised her left arm, and with the clenched hand seemed to strike
me on the forehead. I received as it were a blow from an iron hammer,
and fell.

I sprang to my feet, cold and wet, but clear-headed and strong. Had the
blow revived me? it had left neither wound nor pain!--But how came I
wet?--I could not have lain long, for the moon was no higher!

The lady stood some yards away, her back toward me. She was doing
something, I could not distinguish what. Then by her sudden gleam I knew
she had thrown off her garments, and stood white in the dazed moon. One
moment she stood--and fell forward.

A streak of white shot away in a swift-drawn line. The same instant the
moon recovered herself, shining out with a full flash, and I saw that
the streak was a long-bodied thing, rushing in great, low-curved bounds
over the grass. Dark spots seemed to run like a stream adown its back,
as if it had been fleeting along under the edge of a wood, and catching
the shadows of the leaves.

"God of mercy!" I cried, "is the terrible creature speeding to the
night-infolded city?" and I seemed to hear from afar the sudden burst
and spread of outcrying terror, as the pale savage bounded from house to
house, rending and slaying.

While I gazed after it fear-stricken, past me from behind, like a swift,
all but noiseless arrow, shot a second large creature, pure white. Its
path was straight for the spot where the lady had fallen, and, as I
thought, lay. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. I sprang forward
pursuing the beast. But in a moment the spot I made for was far behind
it.

"It was well," I thought, "that I could not cry out: if she had risen,
the monster would have been upon her!"

But when I reached the place, no lady was there; only the garments she
had dropped lay dusk in the moonlight.

I stood staring after the second beast. It tore over the ground with yet
greater swiftness than the former--in long, level, skimming leaps, the
very embodiment of wasteless speed. It followed the line the other had
taken, and I watched it grow smaller and smaller, until it disappeared
in the uncertain distance.

But where was the lady? Had the first beast surprised her, creeping upon
her noiselessly? I had heard no shriek! and there had not been time to
devour her! Could it have caught her up as it ran, and borne her away to
its den? So laden it could not have run so fast! and I should have seen
that it carried something!

Horrible doub