The woofus is the most dreaded carnivore of all Poros. It is about the size and general appearance of an earthly mountain-lion, except that it is hairless, is lavender in color, has webbed feet, and has pale blue antennae instead of ears. A woofus is a match for ten Cupians in fair fight; and its chief occupation, when not fighting, is just to sit and howl.
Most of the fauna of the planet are either reptiles or insects. Birds are unknown. Mathlabs, fireworms, blue apes and Cupians are about the only mammals. The insects run through all the sizes from tiny bugs up to the ant men and the huge whistling bees. The reptiles range from the brink, which is a tiny kangaroo-like toad a quarter-inch in length, up to the woofus, which I have just described.
A pleasant situation for Cabot, indeed, to have five of these howling beasts staked about him in a circle.
Now he understood why he had been permitted to retain his apparatus. It was so that he might be tormented by the howling of these guards.
[XVII]
“THE LION AND THE MOUSE”
There is an ancient Cupian fable about a brink which once did a favor for a woofus, thus so surprising the woofus that he died of the shock. But in the present case, the brinks figured a little bit differently, as you shall see as you read on.
To realize Cabot’s predicament, take a pair of compasses and draw five equally spaced circles, each tangent to the next.
The center of each circle will then represent a post, and the circle will represent the area in which the woofus, tied to that post can bite. The small star-shaped figure, bounded by the five circles, will represent the space in which Myles Cabot was to live during the next twenty-four days, while King Yuri was getting Cabot’s marriage annulled by the Assembly, and was trying to persuade Lilla to reconsider her choice.