he was there, standing near a huge isolated tree; Elza, pale,
trembling, a hand pressed against her mouth in terror; disheveled, her
garments dirty and torn with her wanderings through the forest.

A swift glimpse as momentarily I paused; a second or two only, but the
scene was impressed upon my brain as actinic light upon a photo-screen.
Close by Elza, partially behind her, I saw something small, no taller
than Elza's waist. A naked thing of sleek, glistening skin. The
monstrosity of a human child; a bulging head, wavering upon a neck
incapable of supporting it; a thick round body; twisted, misshapen
limbs. A face ... human? It made my gorge rise with its gruesome
suggestion of humanity. Nostrils--no nose; a mouth, lipless, but red
like a curved gash with upturned corners to make the travesty of a grin;
a triangle of watery eyes, goggling. Senselessly, it stood watching Elza
with a dull, vacant curiosity. Not human, this thing! Yet monstrously
repulsive in its hideous suggestion of an idiot child.

Elza was not facing it; my gaze instinctively followed hers to the tree.
Crowning horror! The adult of this thing upon the ground hung swaying by
a thick hand and arm from a low limb; hung, then dropped. Growling,
mouthing as though it would try and form human words of menace, it
picked itself up and shambled toward Elza.

I leaped for them. Elza seemed too terrified to run. The thing reached
her, towered over her; seized her in its arms. She screamed--the agony
of revolt and terror; but over her voice rose my own shout of rage, and
abruptly the thing dropped her and turned to confront me. Snarling,
glaring with its three hideous blood-shot eyes; waving its thick, bent
arms.

I had no weapons save those with which nature had endowed me. The regret
of that came as a fleeting thought; and then I crashed into the thing;
my fist, passing its awkward guard, struck it full in the face. I
sickened. Even in the heat of combat a nausea swept me. For no solid
flesh and bone met my blow, like the shell of an egg, my fist crashed
into and through its face.

Warm, sticky moisture ... a stench ...

The thing had toppled backward, with me sprawling upon its bloated bulk.
It struggled, writhed ... Its arms gripped me, its huge fingers clutched
my throat ... I caught a glimpse of its smashed face ... so close, I
turned away ... a face of yellow-white pulp ...

My fist cracked and sank into its chest. I pounded, smashed; broke the
she