Again the other answered, this time lifting himself to his full
height, sending a message along the nerves of his back that prickled
his own skin and passed out along the tail with an exquisite ripple of
movement. And once more came the answer from below.
So the preliminary challenge went on. Already in the voice of each
there had begun to show itself that faint note of hysteria that
culminates presently in a scream of anger and a torrent of spits,
leading again in their turn to an ominous silence and the first fierce
clawing blows at eyes and ears. In another instant the watcher above
would recoil for a moment as the swift rush was made up the trellis,
and then the battle would be joined: but that instant never came.
There fell a sudden silence; and he, peering down into the grey gloom,
chin on paws, and tail twitching eighteen inches behind, saw an
astonishing sight. His adversary had broken off in the midst of a long
crescendo cry, and was himself crouched flat upon the narrow wall
staring now not upwards, but downwards, diagonally, at a certain
curtained window eight feet below.
This was all very unusual and contrary to precedent. A dog, a human
hand armed with a missile, a furious minatory face--these things were
not present to account for the breach of etiquette.
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