hed aloft and back-lashed,
swift as a released spring; but the hedgehog had ducked, or tucked if
you like, more than instantly back into himself. Followed an infernal,
ghastly writhing and squirming of the long, unprotected mottled serpent
body as it struck--too late to stop itself--simply spines, spines only,
that tore and lacerated maddeningly. Whip, whip, whip! flashed the
deadly reptilian head, pecking, quicker than light flickers, at the
impassive round _cheval-de-frise_ that was the hedgehog, in a blind
access of fury terrible to see; and each time the soft throat of the
horror only tore and tore worse, in a ghastly manner, on those spines
that showed no life and said no word, and defied all. It was a siege
of the wild, and a terrible one.

Probably this was the first time in his life that anything had dared to
stand up to that viper. He acted as if it was, anyway. Usually his
malignant hiss, so full of hateful cruelty, was enough of a warning.
And those who ignored that did not generally live to repeat the
omission. He seemed utterly unable to understand that anything could
face his fangs of concentrated death and not go out in contortions.
And there were no contortions about this prickly foe, only an
impassable front, or, if you love exactness, back.

Wild things, unlike man, are rarely given to lose their tempers. It
isn't healthy--in the wild. But if ever a creature appeared to human
eyes to do so, it was that snake. He struck and he struck and he
struck, impaling himself ghastlily each time, and using up his small
immediate magazineful of venom uselessly on--uncompromising spikes!

At last he drew back, a horrible affront to the fairy scene, and, in
the snap of a finger, the hedgehog had unpacked himself, run forward--a
funny little patter it was, much faster than you would expect--slashed
with his dagger fangs, and repacked himself again in an instant.

The snake, writhing afresh under the punishment, threw himself once
more upon the impassive "monkey-puzzle" on four legs, but beyond
tearing himself into an even more ghastly apparition than before, he
accomplished nothing. Finally he broke away, and slid off, a rustling,
half-guessed, fleeting vision, and there was fear at last in those
awful eyes, that could never close, as he went.

Then it was that the quiet, unobstrusive, retiring, self-effacing
hedgehog threw off the mask, and hoisted his true colors. And yet, if
one came to think of it,