“Well done, vicar!” said he, in a tone which betrayed that he was not particularly well pleased. “If you can manage to hold the brutes while I find the key, we’ll soon be shut of them.”
“Don’t hurry on my account,” said Mr. Brander, quite pleasantly.
His bland tone made Ned’s blood boil. The colonist resolved, since he seemed to like his occupation, not to curtail his pleasure. He took twice the necessary time to find the key and place it in the lock. Then, before turning it, he inclined his head over his shoulder, and asked, maliciously—
“Getting tired?”
“Not a bit!” said the vicar, mildly.
“Hang you!” muttered Ned below his breath.
The next moment he heard a rush and a growl, and felt the teeth of one of the hounds meet in his right leg.
“Hallo!” cried Mr. Brander; “can’t you manage him?”
Ned did not answer. Between pain and rage, indeed, he would scarcely have been articulate if he had done so. He gave the dog a vicious kick, which sent him howling away, and, turning the key in the lock, beckoned to the vicar to follow him out. Before doing so, however, Mr. Brander had to dispose of the animal he was still holding. His arms, strong as they were, had begun to ache with the strain, for the dog had writhed and struggled the whole time. Then Ned, holding the candle high, and examining the vicar’s face with exceeding interest and equal malevolence, saw upon it an expression very different from its habitual, placid mildness. The blue eyes were flashing; the handsome mouth was drawn in a tight, straight line; the clear-cut features seemed to have in a moment lost their plumpness, and to have become hard and cruel; while the soft, white hands looked strong and sinewy as they clasped the dog’s throat. Ned watched him curiously. The vicar looked into the animal’s bloodshot eyes with the expression not merely of a master, but of a tyrant. Lifting him with both hands high into the air, he gave the dog such a shaking as set him gurgling and howling and twisting his body with pain, and flung him to the far end of the room to join his companion. Then he crossed the room without any haste, and went out at the door, which Ned shut and locked.
“And now,” said the vicar, “how about the experiment?”