Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/258

  sprung. There was the shock of contact, gurgling noises, convulsive forms heaving upon the sand, the guttering sounds of—of—the abattoir! I saw the snout of the hound twisted sideways, the nose pushed comically upwards, the full mouth in a grotesque grin. Ah, what is more terrible, Doctor, than to see something in human guise worried and throttled by something in the guise of a brute beast?"

Leyden walked to the rail, drummed upon it with his fingers and spat several times into the sea. One guessed that he felt with the hound.

"Dixie sprang back," he continued, his face still from me; "he sprang back and stood panting, salivating—as a dog does when for the first and only time in his life he commits the error of picking up a toad. Dixie was a starving animal—you understand, Doctor—and his mouth was full of blood, but he did not want that blood—that human blood—nor did he want a human life, to save his own. [ 242 ]