it was clear one or the other had had enough and as I marked this those
black shadows came gasping and struggling towards me. There was a sudden
sharp cry, a desperate final tussle--before which strong trees snapped
and bushes were flattened out like grass, not twenty yards away--and
then for a minute all was silent.

One of them had killed, and as I sat rooted to the spot I was forced to
listen while his enemy tore him up and ate him. Many a banquet have
I been at, but never an uglier one than that. I sat in the darkness
while the unknown thing at my feet ripped the flesh from his half-dead
rival in strips, and across the damp night wind came the reek of that
abominable feast--the reek of blood and spilt entrails--until I turned
away my face in loathing, and was nearly starting to my feet to venture
a rush into the forest shadows. But I was spellbound, and remained
listening to the heavy munch of blood-stained jaws until presently I
was aware other and lesser feasters were coming. There was a twinkle of
hungry eyes all about the limits of the area, the shine of green points
of envious fire that circled round in decreasing orbits, as the little
foxes and jackals came crowding in. One fellow took me for a rock,
so still I sat, putting his hot, soft paws upon my knee for a space,
and others passed me so near I could all but touch them.

The big beast had taken himself off by this time, and there must have
been several hundreds of these newcomers. A merry time they had of it;
the whole place was full of the green, hurrying eyes, and amidst the
snap of teeth and yapping and quarrelling I could hear the flesh being
torn from the red bones in every direction. One wolf-like individual
brought a mass of hot liver to eat between my feet, but I gave him a kick,
and sent him away much to his surprise. Gradually, however, the sound
of this unholy feast died away, and, though you may hardly believe it,