I saw, with a curious excitement, that between his knees he held a
rabbit, and that with his left hand he had it by the throat. Now, what
is extraordinary to me about this discovery is that there was nothing
shocking in it.

I saw the rabbit's wild and panic-blown eye, I saw the bright white
rim of it, and recognised its little added terror of me even in the
midst of its anguish. That must have been the conventional fright of a
beast of chase, an instinct to fear rather than an emotion; for of
emotions the poor thing must have been having its fill. It was not
till I saw its mouth horribly open, its lips curled back to show its
shelving teeth that I could have guessed at what it was suffering. But
gradually I apprehended what was being done. Its captor was squeezing
its throat. I saw what I had never seen before, and have never seen
since, I saw its tongue like a pale pink petal of a flower dart out as
the pressure drove it. Revolting sight as that would have been to me,
witnessed in the world, here, in this dark wood, in this outland
presence, it was nothing but curious. Now, as I watched and wondered,
the being, following my eyes' direction, looked down at the huddled
thing between his thighs, and just as children squeeze a snap-dragon
flower to make it open and shut its mouth, so precisely did he,
pressing or releasing the windpipe, cause that poor beast to throw
back its lips and dart its dry tongue. He did this many times while he
watched it; and when he looked up at me again, and while he continued
to look at me, I saw that his cruel fingers, as by habit, continued
the torture, and that in some way he derived pleasure from the
performance--as if it gratified him to be sure that effect was
following on cause inevitably.

I have never, I believe, been cruel to an animal in my life. I hated