wary sniff, did not seem to think the rat worthy
of a journey to the sea-bank and decent burial, and passed on, the
richer for a drink of rat's blood, perhaps, but very hungry. He came
upon a redshank's nest in a tuft of grass.

The redshank, who has much the cut of a snipe, plus red-orange legs,
must have heard or seen him coming in the new, thin moonlight, and told
all the marsh about it with a shrieking whistled, "Tyop! tyop!" But
the nest contained four eggs, which the polecat took in lieu of
anything bigger, carrying two--one journey for each--all the way to the
sea-bank, to yet another hole he had previously scraped, or found,
therein. One of the other two eggs he consumed himself, and was just
making off with number four, when something came galloping over the
marsh in the moonlight, splashing through the pools, and making, in
that silence, no end of a row for a wild creature.

The polecat stood quite still, with his long back arched, his sturdy,
short forepaws anchored tense, and his short, rounded ears alert, and
watched it come, not because he wanted to, but because there did not
happen to be any cover thereabouts, and to move might give him away.

When he saw that the beast was long and low, and short-legged and
flat-beaded, his long outer fur began to bristle. Those outlines were
the trade-marks of his own tribe--not his own species only--and were,
he knew, more likely to mean tough trouble than anything else. Then he
realized that the path of the new arrival would take it right towards
him, and that was bad, because to move now and get out of the way was
hopeless. Also, he could see the size of the beast now, and that was
worse than bad--some ten inches to a foot worse.

The beast held a wild-duckling in its jaws, and the little body, with
its stuck-out webbed feet, flapped and flopped dismally from side to
side, as the animal cantered along with a somewhat shuffling,
undulating gait. And then the polecat became transfixed. He had
recognized the new-comer. He knew the breed, and would have given a
lot not to have molested that redshank's abode and be found there.

The strange beast--palpably a large, sinuous, and wicked
proposition--came right up to the polecat, standing there rigid, erect,
motionless, and alone in the moonlight, with the fourth egg between his
paws, and then stopped dead, almost touching him. Apparently, it saw
him for the first time. Certainly it was not pleased; it said so