It seemed to me that I waited a long time; but it cannot have been really long, for it was not yet noon when I heard again the barking of dogs, and the voices of men approaching. They walked round and round the trap, and tried to peer through the crevices, and they let off their thunder-sticks, presumably to make me give some sign that I was inside. But I remained crouching in the corner silent.

Then I heard them on the roof. A sudden ray of light pierced the half-darkness, and in another moment one of the logs from the roof had been lifted off, and thrown upon the ground outside, and the sunlight poured in upon me. I heard a shout from one of the men, and, looking up out of the corners of my eyes, I saw their heads appearing in the opening above, one behind the other. But I did not move nor give any sign that I was alive.

[195]

The next thing I knew was that a rope dropped on me from above. It had a loop at the end which fell across my head; and remembering Kahwa, and how she had been dragged away with ropes about her, I raised a paw and pushed the thing aside. Somehow, as I did so, the loop fell over my paw, and when I tried to shake it off it slipped, and ran tight about my wrist, and the men at the other end jerked it till it cut deep into the flesh. Then I lost my temper, and when a second rope fell on me I struck at it angrily with my free paw, but only with the same result. Both my paws were now fast, the two ropes passing out through the roof, one at one side and one at the other; and as the men pulled and jerked on them inch by inch, in spite of all my strength, my arms were gradually stretched out full spread on either side of me, and I was helpless, held up on my hind-legs, unable to drop my fore-feet to the floor, and unable to reach the rope on either side with my teeth.

Then I lost all control of myself, and I remember nothing of the struggle that followed, except that everything swam red around me, and I raged blindly, furiously, impotently. In the end another rope was fast to one of my hind-legs, and another round my neck. Then, I know not how, they[196] lifted the log, which Wooffa and I had been unable to budge, away from the door, and, fighting desperately, I was dragged out into the open, and so, yard by yard, down, down the mountain towards their houses.

I was utterly helpless. Four of the men walked, two on either side of me, each having hold of the end of a rope, and all the ropes were kept taut. If I stopped, the two dogs that they had with them fell upon my heels and bit, and I could not turn or use a paw to reach them. If I tried to charge at the men on either side, my feet were jerked from under me before I could move a yard. And somewhere close behind me all the while, I knew, walked the last man, with a thunder-stick in his hand, which might speak at any minute.

It was nearly evening by the time that they had dragged me the mile or so to where their houses were. As we came near, other men joined us, until there must have been thirty or more; but the original four still held the ropes, and they dragged me into one of the buildings, several times larger than the trap, and, making holes in the walls between the logs, they passed the ends of the ropes through them and made them fast outside, so that I was still held in the same position, with my two[197] arms stretched out on either side of me and the ropes cutting into the flesh. So they left me. They left me for two days and two nights. Often they came in and looked at me and spoke to me, and once the ropes were slackened for a minute or two from the sides, and a large pail of water was pushed within my reach. I think they saw that I was going mad from thirst, as certainly I was. I plunged my face into the water and drank, and as soon as I ceased the ropes were pulled tight and the pail was taken away. It was not until the third day that I had a mouthful to eat, when the same thing was repeated: the ropes were slackened for a while, and both food and drink were pushed up to me. I was allowed a longer time to make the meal, but, as soon as I had finished, the ropes were tightened once more. Two days later I was given another meal; and then two days and another. But I was never given as much food as I wanted, but only enough to keep me alive. By this time I had come to distinguish the men apart, and one I saw was the master of the others. He it was who always brought me my food, and—I am ashamed to confess it—I began to look forward to his coming.

Kill him? Yes, gladly would I have killed him,[198] had he put himself within my reach; but I saw that he meant me no harm. The tone of his voice when he spoke to me was not angry. Whenever he spoke he called me ‘Peter,’ and I came to understand that this was the name he had given me. When he came to the door and said ‘Peter,’ I knew that food was coming. I hated him thoroughly; but it seemed that he was all that stood between me and starvation, and, however much he made me suffer, I understood that he did not intend to kill me or wish to let me die. Then I remembered what Kahwa had said about the man who gave her food and used to play with her, and I began to comprehend it. No one ever attempted to play with me, or dared to put themselves within reach of my paws; but after a while this man, the man whom I in my turn now thought of as Peter, when my paws were safely bound and the ropes taut, would come to me and lay his hand upon my head, taking care to keep well away out of reach of my teeth. He rarely came to see me, at any time of the day or night, without bringing me lumps of sugar, which he held out to my mouth on the end of a piece of board so that I could lick them off; and after a while he gave me meals every day, and I was less hungry.

[199]

Then one day another rope was slipped over my nose, so that I could not bite, and, while all the ropes were stretched to their uttermost and I could not move an inch, Peter put a heavy collar round my neck, to which was fastened a chain that I could neither break nor gnaw. And when that had been firmly fastened round one of the logs in the wall, the ropes were all taken off.

Wow-ugh! The relief of it! Both my wrists and one of my ankles where the ropes had been were cut almost to the bone, and horribly painful; but though it was at first excruciating agony to rest my weight on my front-feet, the delight of being able to get on all fours again, and to be able to move around to the full length of the chain, was inexpressible. I had not counted the days, but it must have been over a month since I was captured, and all that time I had been bound so that, ............