lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry whose diminishing final note
was drowned in a noise like that of a swearing cat, which emanated from
the sack. Instantly that formidable sheep was upon its feet and had
taken in the military situation at a glance. In a few moments it had
approached, stamping, to within fifty yards of the swinging foeman, who,
now retreating and anon advancing, seemed to invite the fray. Suddenly I
saw the beast's head drop earthward as if depressed by the weight of its
enormous horns; then a dim, white, wavy streak of sheep prolonged itself
from that spot in a generally horizontal direction to within about four
yards of a point immediately beneath the enemy. There it struck sharply
upward, and before it had faded from my gaze at the place whence it had
set out I heard a horrid thump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle
shot forward, with a slack rope higher than the limb to which he was
attached. Here the rope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight, and
back he swung in a breathless curve to the other end of his arc. The ram
had fallen, a heap of indistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but
pulling itself together and dodging as its antagonist swept downward it
retired at random, alternately shaking its head and stamping its
fore-feet. When it had backed about the same distance as that from which
it had delivered the assault it paused again, bowed its head as if in
prayer for victory and again shot forward, dimly visible as before--a
prolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with a sharp
ascension. Its course this time was at a right angle to its former one,
and its impatience so great that it struck the enemy before he had
nearly reached the lowest point of his arc. In consequence he went
flying round and round in a horizontal circle whose radius was about
equal to half the length of the rope, which I forgot to say was nearly
twenty feet long. His shrieks, _crescendo_ in approach and _diminuendo_
in recession, made the rapidity of his revolution more obvious to the
ear than to the eye. He had evidently not yet been struck in a vital