Just at this moment, however, as if to divert the fixed
gaze of man and beast, there issued from out the cavernous
depths of the rotten stump whereon crouched the jaguar
a huge, fox-like brush, then a barrel-shaped, elongated,
brown-haired body with crested mane, and finally the
tapering snout of an enormous ant-bear. But scarcely had
this uncouth monster slowly withdrawn itself, and turned
to go when, with a savage bound, the jaguar's vindictive
fangs were fixed in the throat of the unwieldy animal, and
he seemed to shake his prey like a rat ; a moment only,
for soon the cruel claws of the ant-bear tore into the jaguar's
eyeballs and his teeth-grip was relaxed.
Instantly the clumsy ant-bear threw himself on his back



1 66 The Savage Club Papers

and fought with all four legs, clawing his foe viciously and
drawing him into a fierce embrace. Thrice did the furious
jaguar try to clutch the snout of his slow and comparatively
insignificant antagonist, but as often did he pay the penalty
of rash voracity by an ugly gash.
Thus for a few moments they remained locked in each
other's grasp, wallowing supinely, or rolling over and over
again in the embrace of death.
Witnessing this pause in the combat, and worked up by
the very brutality of the scene and its wild surroundings,

M rushed forward with viciously blind impulse and

belaboured the jaguar's skull with desperate blows; nor
ceased till the stock of his Westley-Richards gave way,
smashed to atoms, on the brute's hard cranium.
