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“What is it, mother?” I heard Tom say.

“An animal!” she screamed. “An animal under the sofa!”

“All right,” he said, “that’s only the hare. Here, hounds, out with her, hounds!”

The dogs rushed about, some of them with great lumps of food still in their mouths. But they were confused, and all went into the wrong places. Everything began to fall with dreadful crashes, the fat woman shrieked piercingly, and her shriek was–

“China! Oh! my china-a. John, you wretch! Help! Help! Help!”

To which the Red-faced Man roared in answer–

“Don’t be an infernal fool, Eliza-a. I say, don’t be such an infernal fool.”

Also there were lots of other noises that I cannot remember, except one which a dog made.

This silly dog had thrust its head up the hole over a fire such as the stops make outside the coverts when men are going to shoot, either to hide something or to look for me there. When it came down again because the Red-faced Man kicked it, the dog put its paws into the fire and pulled it all out over the floor. Also it howled very beautifully. Just then another hound, that one which generally led the pack, began to sniff about near me and finally poked its nose under the stuff which hid me.

It jumped back and bayed, whereon I jumped out the other side. Tom made a rush at me and knocked the fat woman off the thing she was standing on, so that she fell among the dogs, which covered her up and began to sniff her all over. Flying from Tom I found myself in front of something filmy, beyond which I saw grass. It looked suspicious, but as nothing in the world could be so bad as Tom, no, not even his dogs, I jumped at it.

There was a crash and a sharp point cut my nose, but I was out upon the grass. Then there were twenty other crashes, and all the hounds were out too, for Tom had cheered them on. I ran to the edge of the lawn and saw a steep slope leading to the sands and the sea. Now I knew what the sea was, for after Tom had shot me in the back I lived by it for a long while, and once swam across a little creek to get to my form, from which it cut me off.

While I ran down that slope fast as my aching legs would carry me, I made up my mind that I would swim out into the sea and drown there, since it is better to drown than to be torn to pieces. “But why are you laughing, friend Mahatma.”

“I am not laughing,” I said. “In this state, without a body, I have nothing to laugh with. Still you are right, for you see that I should be laughing if I could. Your story of the stout lady and the dogs and the china is very amusing.”

“Perhaps, friend, but it did not amuse me. Nothing is amusing when one is going to be eaten alive.”

“Of course it isn’t,” I answered. “Please forgive me and go on.”

“Well, I tumbled down that cliff, followed by some of the dogs and Tom and the girl Ella and the huntsman Jerry on foot, and dragged myself across the sands till I came to the lip of the sea.”

Just here there was a boat and by it stood Giles the keeper. He had come there to get out of the way of the hunting, which he hated as much as he did the coursing. The sight of him settled me–into the sea I went. The dogs wanted to follow me, but Jerry called and whipped them off.

“I won’t have them caught in the current and drowned,” he said. “Let the flea-bitten old devil go, she’s brought trouble enough already.”

“Help me shove off the boat, Giles,” shouted Tom. “She shan’t beat us; we must have her for the hounds. Come on, Ella.”