dreadful cries--not like a dog's at all. I hurried down. There was the poor beast--wriggled out from under the rug-stretched on its side, dead. This fellow of mine had followed me in, and he went and sat down by the body. When I spoke to him he just looked round, and wagged his tail along the ground, but would not come away; and there he sat till it was buried, very interested, but not sorry at all."
Our friend was silent, looking angrily at something in the distance.
And we, too, were silent, seeing in spirit that vigil of early morning: The thin, lifeless, sandy-coloured body, stretched on those red mats; and this black creature--now lying at our feet--propped on its haunches like the dog in "The Death of Procris," patient, curious, ungrieved, staring down at it with his bright, interested eyes.
1912.
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Inn of Tranquility and Others