ast is before their eyes--suddenly the cry
of the pursuit stops, they have reached the beast--again there is yelping
and snarling--the beast is defending himself, and is undoubtedly maiming
some of them; amid the baying of the hounds one hears more and more often
the howl of a dying dog.

The hunters stood still, and each of them, with his gun ready, bent
forward like a bow with his head thrust into the forest; they could wait
no longer! Already one after another left his station and crowded into the
thicket; each wished to be the first to meet the beast; though the
Seneschal kept cautioning them, though the Seneschal rode to each station
on his horse, crying that whoever should leave his place, be he simple
peasant or gentleman's son, should get the lash upon his back. There
was-no help for it! All, against orders, ran into the wood. three guns
sounded at once, then a continual cannonade, until, louder than the
reports, the bear roared and filled with echoes all the forest. A dreadful
roar, of pain, fury, and despair! After it the yelping of the dogs, the
cries of the sportsmen, the horns of the beaters thundered from the centre
of the thicket. Some hunters hasten into the forest, others cock their
guns, and all rejoice. Only the Seneschal in grief cries that they have
missed him. The sportsmen and the beaters had all gone to the same side,
between the toils and the forest, to cut off the beast; but the bear,
frightened by the throng of dogs and men, turned back into places less
carefully guarded, towards the fields, whence the sportsmen set to guard
them had departed, where of the many ranks of hunters there remained only
the Seneschal, Thaddeus, the Count, and a few beaters.

Here the wood was thinner; from within could be heard a roaring, and the
crackling of breaking boughs, until finally the bear darted from the dense
forest like a thunderbolt from the clouds. From all sides the dogs were
chasing him, terrifying him, tearing him, until at last he rose on his
hind legs and looked around, frightening his enemies with a roar; with his
fore paws he tore up now the roots of a tree, now charred stumps, now
stones that had grown into the earth, hurling them at dogs and men;
finally he broke down a tree, and brandishing it like a club to the right
and the left, he rushed straight at the last guardians of the line of
beaters, at the Count and Thaddeus. They stood their ground unafraid, and
levelled the barrels of their mus