kicked out madly and felt a soft body with his feet. He was horribly
scared now. It must be a big thing to swing the telescope like that. He
saw for a moment the outline of a head black against the starlight, with
sharply-pointed upstanding ears and a crest between them. It seemed to him
to be as big as a mastiff's. Then he began to bawl out as loudly as he
could for help.

At that the thing came down upon him again. As it did so his hand touched
something beside him on the floor. He kicked out, and the next moment his
ankle was gripped and held by a row of keen teeth. He yelled again, and
tried to free his leg by kicking with the other. Then he realised he had
the broken water-bottle at his hand, and, snatching it, he struggled into
a sitting posture, and feeling in the darkness towards his foot, gripped a
velvety ear, like the ear of a big cat. He had seized the water-bottle by
its neck and brought it down with a shivering crash upon the head of the
strange beast. He repeated the blow, and then stabbed and jabbed with the
jagged end of it, in the darkness, where he judged the face might be.

The small teeth relaxed their hold, and at once Woodhouse pulled his leg
free and kicked hard. He felt the sickening feel of fur and bone giving
under his boot. There was a tearing bite at his arm, and he struck over it
at the face, as he judged, and hit damp fur.

There was a pause; then he heard the sound of claws; and the dragging of a
heavy body away from him over the observatory floor. Then there was
silence, broken only by his own sobbing breathing, and a sound like
licking. Everything was black except the parallelogram of the blue
skylight with the luminous dust of stars, against which the end of the
telescope now appeared in silhouette. He waited, as it seemed, an
interminable time.