Evidently they had broken away from the rest of the pack on
the trail of this alien scent, and were not quite sure how
to treat their quarry now they had got him.

  ``The hyna hailed our approach with unmistakable
relief and demonstrations of friendliness.  It had probably
been accustomed to uniform kindness from humans, while its
first experience of a pack of hounds had left a bad
impression.  The hounds looked more than ever embarrassed as
their quarry paraded its sudden intimacy with us, and the
faint toot of a horn in the distance was seized on as a
welcome signal for unobtrusive departure.  Constance and I
and the hyna were left alone in the gathering twilight.

  `` `What are we to do?' asked Constance.

  `` `What a person you are for questions,' I said.

  `` `Well, we can't stay here all night with a hyna,'
she retorted.

  `` `I don't know what your ideas of comfort are,' I said;
`but I shouldn't think of staying here all night even
without a hyna.  My home may be an unhappy one, but at
least it has hot and cold water laid on, and domestic
service, and other conveniences which we shouldn't find
here.  We had better make for that ridge of trees to the
right; I imagine the Crowley road is just beyond.'

  ``We trotted off slowly along a faintly marked cart-track,
with the beast following cheerfully at our heels.

  `` `What on earth are we to do with the hyna?' came
the inevitable question.

  `` `What does one generally do with hynas?' I asked
crossly.

  `` `I've never had anything to do with one before,' said
Constance.

  `` `Well, neither have I. If we even knew its sex we might
give it a name.  Perhaps we might call it Esm.  That
would do in either case.

  ``There was still sufficient daylight for us to
distinguish wayside objects, and our listless spirits gave
an upward perk as we came upon a small half-naked gipsy brat
picking blackberries from a low-growing bush.  The sudden
apparition of two horsewomen and a hyna set it off
crying, and in any case we should scarcely have gleaned any
useful geographical information from that source; but there
was a probability that we might strike a gipsy encampment
somewhere along our route.  We rode on hopefully but
uneventfully for another mile or so.

  `` `I wonder what the child was doing there,' said
Constance presently.

  `` `Picking blackberries.  Obviously.'

  `` `I don't like the way it cried,' pursued Constance;
`somehow its wail keeps ringing in my ears.'

  ``I did not chide Constance for her morbid fancies; as a
matter of fact the same sensation, of being pursued by a
persistent fretful wail, had been forcing itself on my
rather over-tired nerves.  For company's sake I hulloed to
Esm, who had lagged somewhat behind.  With a few springy
bounds he drew up level, and then shot past us.

  ``The wailing accompaniment was explained.  The gipsy
child was firmly, and I expect painfully, held in his jaws.

  `` `Merciful Heaven!' screamed Constance, `what on earth
shall we do? What are we to do?'

  ``I am perfectly certain that at the Last Judgment
Constance will ask more questions than any of the examining
Seraphs.

  `` `Can't we do something?' she persisted tearfully, as
Esm cantered easily along in front of our tired horses.

  ``Personally I was doing everything that occurred to me at
the moment.  I stormed and scolded and coaxed in English and
French and gamekeeper language; I made absurd, ineffectual
cuts in the air with my thongless hunting-crop; I hurled my
sandwich case at the brute; in fact, I really don't know
what more I could have done.  And still we lumbered on
through the deepening dusk, with that dark uncouth shape
lumbering ahead of us, and a drone of lugubrious music
floating in our ears.  Suddenly Esm bounded aside into
some thick bushes, where we could not follow; the wail rose
to a shriek and then stopped altogether.  This part of the
story I always hurry over, because it is really rather
horrible.  When the beast joined us again, after an absence
of a few minutes, there was an air of patient understanding
about him, as though he knew that he had done something of
which we disapproved, but which he felt to be thoroughly