The girl broke away and ran. She was swift and hard as a greyhound. For a moment the other stood, leaning over a bed of nettles, snorting and sniffing as the blood dripped from his nose. Then he pursued. She heard him thundering behind her. It was like the pursuit of a fawn by a grizzly. She had only a hundred yards to go to the open; and as she fled with her head on her shoulder, and her plait flapping, feeling the strength in her limbs and the courage in her heart, she mocked her pursuer silently.
That drink-sodden grampus catch her!
Her pride came toppling down about her. She tripped, wrenched her ankle, and knew that she was done.
Before her was a familiar tree she had often climbed, with a branch some six feet from the ground.
She swung herself up.
The Great Beast came snorting up. He was a dreadful sight. His nose was bleeding profusely, and the blood had mingled with his beard and moustache. He had lost his cap, and his head shimmered bald at her feet beneath wisps of hair.
He seemed like a great vat full of spirit into which she had tossed a lighted match.
"I got you, my beauty!" he panted in smothered and unnatural voice.
He put his hands on the branch.
She stamped on them with her heels: and she stamped hard. He swore, and drew from a leather sheath a wooden-handled knife such as Danish fisher-folk use.