Wee Timrous Beasties | Page 7

adjoining grass-tuft. He was sick,
and dizzy, and bruised all over.
Scarcely had he recovered sufficient coolness to look about him, when
the object of his terror emerged with dripping jaws, and he was enabled,
for the first time, to form an opinion of the arch-enemy of vole-kind.
To avoid the bird of prey, a vole need only remain below the surface; to
avoid the little gentleman in black, he need only rise above it; but from
the grim pursuit of the weasel, bent on meal or murder, there is no
escape.
Terror-stricken as he was, he could hardly help admiring the easy
supple swagger of the creature's movements. She held her broad
browed head erect, the bristles pointed like needles from her
blood-streaked muzzle, grit and pluck could be traced in her every
movement, and, in her eyes, universal defiance.
Down the dark watercourse she went, twisting her lithe chestnut body
S-wise in and out of the coarse grass-clumps. A frog leaped before her.
In a flash she had flung herself upon it, her white teeth clicked together
in its brain, and she sauntered slowly out of sight, bearing her latest

victim in her mouth. It was hideous. To eat vegetables was natural
enough, but to eat living, quivering flesh! A sickening faintness crept
over him, and it was full an hour before he could leave his shelter.
Very cautiously he retraced his steps to the familiar entrance, and
stopped to listen. A flood of moonlight burst through the clouds, and
his trembling shadow danced ink-black before him. He was a clear
mark for every kind of foe, yet he still paused irresolute. It was too
horribly silent below. A clumsy whirring beetle alighted at his feet and
stumbled heavily down the hole. Another followed. He turned and fled,
blindly, recklessly, anywhere to escape that exhaling reek of murder.
[Illustration: HE STILL PAUSED IRRESOLUTE.]
Away from the watercourse the grasses grew shorter and more slender.
It was easy, but risky going. Small pyramids of soil dotted the ground
in different directions, some massed together almost in circles, others at
wider intervals. At the edge of one of them he stopped and commenced
idly burrowing with his fore feet. For a few inches the light, crumbling
earth yielded easily to his efforts. Then the floor seemed to subside
beneath him, and he found a shelter ready made. Two narrow
rough-hewn tunnels led from beneath the centre of the heap. He rested
for a few minutes, then started to explore one of them.
It could hardly be described as a burrow, for, at intervals, it was half
choked with earth-falls, and he had to work his way through them. In
direction it was fairly straight. After a few yards progress he found its
termination. It opened on a larger tunnel running at right angles to
itself.
The sides of this latter were smooth and polished, smoother even than
those of the approach to the old home. It was wide enough for two
voles to run abreast in. The straggling grass-roots which hung overhead
proved it of trifling depth. Indeed, the roof was very thin, in places
hardly solid. Through these the moonlight seemed to filter down,
forming dull bluish patches on the floor.
From the main road passages branched out at intervals. He turned into

one of them. The sides were rough and crumbling, and it came abruptly
to an end. He soon retraced his steps, but paused when he had regained
the meeting of the ways. Something was approaching along the main
tunnel. He took the wisest course, and crouched within the shelter of
the side gallery. A crimson pointed snout, a huge paddling foot, and a
dark shapeless mass passed in quick succession before his eyes, and
vanished in the darkness.
As it swept by, the foot caught the crumbling edge of his retreat,
covering him with a shower of light mould. For the second time he
experienced the sickening, paralyzing agony of fear. This was
succeeded by an irresistible impulse to break cover. He sprang into the
main shaft once more, determined to take advantage of the first outlet.
A shadowy blue glimmer shone before him, and he quickened his pace
towards it. Suddenly the light was extinguished, the walls of the tunnel
seemed to cave in around him, in front of him he heard a dull, choking
gasp, and he found his nose in contact with a warm, palpitating velvet
body.
This time his nerve failed him completely, and he lay absolutely
motionless, conscious, with only a dull indifference, that death stared
him in the face. But death seemed slow in coming, and, as he lay, his
indifference changed to a fierce longing, first for a speedy end of it all,
then for life at any price. Slowly and