ts did not come back.
Therefore, whatever incarnation of death it was that removed them must
be there still. He knew that. That lonely, wounded bird knew that.
And he was right.

Behind him, practically invisible, flat to the ground, a long, low,
narrow, dark shape was lying crouched, creeping, creeping, creeping
towards his tail. Slowly, almost painfully slowly, it drew upon him
gradually, so gradually that the distance between them could scarce be
seen to lessen. And soundlessly, so soundlessly that even his quick
ears, trained far beyond the quickest human aural perception, could not
hear it.

Then, so quickly that the eye could not follow it, the crouching form
made its rush.

The skua was sitting motionless, with his head looking straight in
front of him. The dark form came from behind, and there would have
been no time for the skua to move before the thing, whatever it was,
had him by the back of the neck, and dead, save for one little tiny
fact. As it propelled itself forward, in the first bound, the claws of
the beast's hindpaw's scraped upon a stone. It was only a little
sound, and it gave the skua barely a fraction of a second's warning;
but, he being a wild thing, it was enough.

Quick as light the bird had half turned upon one side, and flung up one
claw and wing to cover his neck, whilst his head jerked round hindpart
before in the same atom of time.

Thus it happened that the beast, unable to stop, found himself with his
head and eyes being dug at by a hooked beak, and his jaws closed upon a
skinny leg instead of upon the skua's spinal column, as he had
intended, which would have put the skua out of life like turning out a
gas-jet.

And it was then, in that instant, that the moon chose to dodge from
behind a cloud and reveal the beast as a big, long, lean, and hungry
dog-stoat. Probably he had thought that the skua was a gull, and a
wounded one. There is a difference, however, between the skuas and the
gulls, though they bear a family likeness. He discovered the
difference now, and for the next few minutes was not overjoyed at the
knowledge.

One cannot do much blood-sucking to weaken one's prey out of a scrawny
leg that resembles a twig wrapped round with leather. And the stoat
found this out, too, and he would have shifted his hold to the bird's
body like a flash, if he had been given a chance, but he never was.

Before he knew what was happening, he was blinded by the beating of
v