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 jobbed 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. Was the thing coming on again? He felt in his
trouser-pocket for some matches, and found one remaining. He tried
to strike this, but the floor was wet, and it spat and went out. He
cursed. He could not see where the door was situated. In his struggle
he had quite lost his bearings. The strange beast, disturbed by the
splutter of the match, began to move again. "Time!" called Woodhouse,
with a sudden gleam of mirth, but the thing was not coming at him
again. He must have hurt it, he thought, with the broken bottle. He
felt a dull pain in his ankle. Probably he was bleeding there. He
wondered if it would support him if he tried to stand up. The night