The Bat came to a Halt and Stared
They hurled themselves at random, they bit at random, they bucked and somersaulted, they spun entwined in loops and twists, in double-knotted tangles, in sinuous figures of eight. Now one was on his back and now the other—shrewmice reck little which way up they fight. Now they sped screaming up the trunk and all but reached the Pygmy; now they dropped earthward with twin thud, and grazed a red vole's nose. So without pause or respite. They tore and scratched and gripped and pulled and wrenched and tugged and jumped and squealed until——it was an earthquake, a rounded dull upheaval, a split and crackle of the moss, a sputter of dry dust, and, in the midst, like some queer fungus growth, the mole's red nose.
The Pygmy Climbed Two Inches Up
"Flick!" went a woodmouse tail, betokening danger. The amphitheatre emptied in a moment; voles helter-skelter into cover, bat loose into the sky. The Pygmy tumbled earthwards, shot forward, paused, whisked up again, and crept behind a flake of bark.
Now One was on his Back and now the Other
The two shrews lay amazed upon their backs, and in between them wagged the intruding nose.
Slowly it lengthened. Two naked paddle-feet passed on the surface, and, like some clumsy fish that quits its element, the mole plunged into air.