downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it would
splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors in the
dust. This irascible and implacable brute--this incarnate
thunderbolt--this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in
the shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory.
It was with a view to summoning it forth to the field of honor that I
suspended its master in the manner described.

"Having completed my preparations, I imparted to the avuncular
pendulum a gentle oscillation, and retiring to cover behind a
contiguous rock, 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