manner described.

"Having completed my preparations, I imparted to the avuncular
pendulum a gentle oscillation, and retiring to cover behind a
contiguous rock, lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry whose
diminishing final note was drowned in a noise like that of a swearing
cat, which emanated from the sack. Instantly that formidable sheep
was upon its feet and had taken in the military situation at a glance.
In a few moments it had approached, stamping, to within fifty yards
of the swinging foeman, who, now retreating and anon advancing, seemed
to invite the fray. Suddenly I saw the beast's head drop earthward as
if depressed by the weight of its enormous horns; then a dim, white,
wavy streak of sheep prolonged itself from that spot in a generally
horizontal direction to within about four yards of a point immediately
beneath the enemy. There it struck sharply upward, and before it had
faded from my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horrid
thump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a
slack rope higher than the limb to which he was attached. Here the
rope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight, and back he swung in
a breathless curve to the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, a
heap of indistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but pulling itself
together and dodging as its antagonist swept downward it retired at
random, alternately shaking its head and stamping its fore-feet. When
it had backed about the same distance as that from which it had
delivered the assault it paused again, bowed its head as if in prayer
for victory and again shot forward, dimly visible as before--a
prolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with a
sharp ascension. Its course this time was at a right angle to its
former one, and its impatience so great that it struck the enemy
before he had nearly reached the lowest point of his arc. In
consequence he went flying round and round in a horizontal circle
whose radius was about equal to half the length of the rope, which I
forgot to say was nearly twenty feet long. His shrieks, _crescendo_
in approach and _diminuendo_ in recession, made the rapidity of his
revolution more obvious to the ear than to the eye. He had evidently
not yet been struck in a vital spot. His posture in the sack and the
distance from the ground at which he hung compelled the ram to operate
upon his lower extremities and the end of his back. Like a plan