and over and out of sight of the boy. The lad was down the steps and
through the hedge in a trice--happily with the garden shears still in
hand. As he came crashing through the gorse bushes, he says he was half
minded to turn back, fearing he had to deal with a lunatic, but the
possession of the shears reassured him. "I could 'ave jabbed his eyes,"
he explained, "anyhow." Directly Mr. Carrington caught sight of him, his
demeanour became at once that of a sane but desperate man. He struggled
to his feet, stumbled, stood up, and came to meet the boy.

"Look!" he cried, "I can't get 'em off!"

And with a qualm of horror the boy saw that, attached to Mr.
Carrington's cheek, to his bare arm, and to his thigh, and lashing
furiously with their lithe brown muscular bodies, were three of these
horrible larvae, their great jaws buried deep in his flesh and sucking
for dear life. They had the grip of bulldogs, and Mr. Carrington's
efforts to detach the monsters from his face had only served to lacerate
the flesh to which it had attached itself, and streak face and neck and
coat with living scarlet.

"I'll cut 'im," cried the boy; "'old on, Sir."

And with the zest of his age in such proceedings, he severed one by one
the heads from the bodies of Mr. Carrington's assailants. "Yup," said
the boy with a wincing face as each one fell before him. Even then, so
tough and determined was their grip that the severed heads remained for
a space, still fiercely biting home and still sucking, with the blood
streaming out of their necks behind. But the boy stopped that with a few
more slashes of his scissors--in one of which Mr. Carrington was
implicated.