Whereat the old fellow stopping suddenly I shot clean over his back,
coming down on my shoulder in the gravel.

But I was much younger than he, and in a minute was in chase again.
This time I laid hold of his cloak, and the moment he felt my grip
he slipped the neck-thongs and left me with only the mangy garment in
my hands. Again we set off, dodging and scampering with all our might
upon that frozen bit of beach. The activity of that old fellow was
marvellous, but I could not and would not lose him. I made a rush and
grappled him, but he tossed his head round and slipped away once more
under my arm, as though he had been brought up by a Chinese wrestler.
Then he got on one side of a flat rock, I the other, and for three or
four minutes we waltzed round that slab in the most insane manner.

But by this time we were both pretty well spent--he with age and I with
faintness from my long fast, and we came presently to a standstill.

After glaring at me for a time, the woodman gasped out as he struggled
for breath--

"Oh, mighty and dreadful spirit! Oh, dweller in primordial ice, say
from which niche of the cliffs has the breath of chance thawed you?"

"Never a niche at all, Mr. Hunter-for-Haddocks'-Eyes," I answered as
soon as I could speak. "I am just a castaway wrecked last night on this
shore of yours, and very grateful indeed will I be if you can show me
the way to some breakfast first, and afterwards to the outside world."

But the old fellow would not believe. "Spirits such as you," he said
sullenly, "need no food, and go whither they will by wish alone."