Beasts and Super-Beasts | Page 5

doing
in an after state."
"You think she really might have passed into some animal form?"
asked Amanda. She was one of those who shape their opinions rather
readily from the standpoint of those around them.
Just then Egbert entered the breakfast-room, wearing an air of
bereavement that Laura's demise would have been insufficient, in itself,
to account for.
"Four of my speckled Sussex have been killed," he exclaimed; "the
very four that were to go to the show on Friday. One of them was
dragged away and eaten right in the middle of that new carnation bed
that I've been to such trouble and expense over. My best flower bed and
my best fowls singled out for destruction; it almost seems as if the
brute that did the deed had special knowledge how to be as devastating
as possible in a short space of time."

"Was it a fox, do you think?" asked Amanda.
"Sounds more like a polecat," said Sir Lulworth.
"No," said Egbert, "there were marks of webbed feet all over the place,
and we followed the tracks down to the stream at the bottom of the
garden; evidently an otter."
Amanda looked quickly and furtively across at Sir Lulworth.
Egbert was too agitated to eat any breakfast, and went out to
superintend the strengthening of the poultry yard defences.
"I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over," said
Amanda in a scandalised voice.
"It's her own funeral, you know," said Sir Lulworth; "it's a nice point in
etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortal
remains."
Disregard for mortuary convention was carried to further lengths next
day; during the absence of the family at the funeral ceremony the
remaining survivors of the speckled Sussex were massacred. The
marauder's line of retreat seemed to have embraced most of the flower
beds on the lawn, but the strawberry beds in the lower garden had also
suffered.
"I shall get the otter hounds to come here at the earliest possible
moment," said Egbert savagely.
"On no account! You can't dream of such a thing!" exclaimed Amanda.
"I mean, it wouldn't do, so soon after a funeral in the house."
"It's a case of necessity," said Egbert; "once an otter takes to that sort of
thing it won't stop."
"Perhaps it will go elsewhere now there are no more fowls left,"
suggested Amanda.

"One would think you wanted to shield the beast," said Egbert.
"There's been so little water in the stream lately," objected Amanda; "it
seems hardly sporting to hunt an animal when it has so little chance of
taking refuge anywhere."
"Good gracious!" fumed Egbert, "I'm not thinking about sport. I want
to have the animal killed as soon as possible."
Even Amanda's opposition weakened when, during church time on the
following Sunday, the otter made its way into the house, raided half a
salmon from the larder and worried it into scaly fragments on the
Persian rug in Egbert's studio.
"We shall have it hiding under our beds and biting pieces out of our
feet before long," said Egbert, and from what Amanda knew of this
particular otter she felt that the possibility was not a remote one.
On the evening preceding the day fixed for the hunt Amanda spent a
solitary hour walking by the banks of the stream, making what she
imagined to be hound noises. It was charitably supposed by those who
overheard her performance, that she was practising for farmyard
imitations at the forth-coming village entertainment.
It was her friend and neighbour, Aurora Burret, who brought her news
of the day's sport.
"Pity you weren't out; we had quite a good day. We found at once, in
the pool just below your garden."
"Did you--kill?" asked Amanda.
"Rather. A fine she-otter. Your husband got rather badly bitten in trying
to 'tail it.' Poor beast, I felt quite sorry for it, it had such a human look
in its eyes when it was killed. You'll call me silly, but do you know
who the look reminded me of? My dear woman, what is the matter?"
When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of

nervous prostration Egbert took her to the Nile Valley to recuperate.
Change of scene speedily brought about the desired recovery of health
and mental balance. The escapades of an adventurous otter in search of
a variation of diet were viewed in their proper light. Amanda's normally
placid temperament reasserted itself. Even a hurricane of shouted
curses, coming from her husband's dressing-room, in her husband's
voice, but hardly in his usual vocabulary, failed to disturb her serenity
as she made a leisurely toilet one evening in a Cairo hotel.
"What is the matter? What has happened?" she asked in amused
curiosity.
"The