or clawed or nibbled up again.

Though they were quite as frightened at first, the men did not run so
fast; and by and by some of them finding they were only glared at, and
followed, and pushed, began to summon up courage once more, and with
courage came impudence. The tapir had the big footman in charge: the
fellow stood stock-still, and let the beast come up to him, then put
out his finger and playfully patted his nose. The tapir gave the nose
a little twist, and the finger lay on the floor.

Then indeed did the footman run.

Gradually the avengers grew more severe, and the terrors of the
imagination were fast yielding to those of sensuous experience, when a
page, perceiving one of the doors no longer guarded, sprang at it, and
ran out. Another and another followed. Not a beast went after, until,
one by one, they were every one gone from the hall, and the whole crew
in the kitchen.

There they were beginning to congratulate themselves that all was over,
when in came the creatures trooping after them, and the second act of
their terror and pain began. They were flung about in all directions;
their clothes were torn from them; they were pinched and scratched any-
and everywhere; Ballbody kept rolling up them and over them, confining
his attentions to no one in particular; the scorpion kept grabbing at
their legs with his huge pincers; a three-foot centipede kept screwing
up their bodies, nipping as he went; varied as numerous were their
woes. Nor was it long before the last of them had fled from the
kitchen to the sculleries.

But thither also they were followed, and there again they were hunted
about. They were bespattered with the dirt of their own neglect; they
were soused in the stinking water that had boiled greens; they were
smeared with rancid dripping; their faces were rubbed in maggots: I
dare not tell all that was done to them. At last they got the door
into a back yard open, and rushed out. Then first they knew that the
wind was howling and the rain falling in sheets. But there was no rest
for them even there. Thither also were they followed by the inexorable
avengers, and the only door here was a door out of the palace: out
every soul of them was driven, and left, some standing, some lying,
some crawling, to the farther buffeting of the waterspouts and
whirlwinds ranging every street of the city. The door was flung to
behind them, and they heard it locked and bolted and barred against
them.