The Haunters of the Silences: A Book of Animal Life

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

The mole was not altogether deficient in character; and he was larger and heavier than his assailant. Seeing that escape was impossible, and stung by the pain of his wounds, he flung himself with energy into the struggle, biting desperately and striving to bear down his lighter opponent. It was a blind smother of a fight, there in that pitch-black narrow tunnel whose walls pressed ceaselessly upon it and hemmed it in. From the smother came no sound but an occasional squeak of rage or pain, barely audible to the lurking spiders among the grass-stems just overhead. The thin turf heaved vaguely, and the grass-blades vibrated to the unseen struggle; but not even the low-flying marsh-hawk could guess the cause of these mysterious disturbances.

For several minutes the mole made a good fight. Then the indomitable savagery of his enemy's attack suddenly cowed him. He shrank and tried to draw away; and in that moment the enemy had him by the throat. In that moment the fight was ended; and in the next the invader was satisfying his ravenous appetite on the warm flesh which he craved.

When this redoubtable little warrior had eaten his fill, he felt a pleasant sense of drowsiness. First he moved a few feet farther along the tunnel, till he reached the point where it was joined by the smaller gallery of his own digging. At this point of vantage, with exits open both ways, he hastily dug himself a little pocket or side chamber where he could curl himself up in comfort. Here he licked his wounds for a minute or two, and carefully washed his face with his clever, hand-like fore paws. Then with a sense of perfect security he went to sleep, his watchful nose, most trusty of sentinels, on guard at the threshold of his bedchamber.

While he slept in this unseen retreat, among the short grasses just above his sleep went on the busy mingling of comedy and tragedy, of mirth and birth and death, which makes the sum of life on a summer day in the pastures. Everywhere the grass, and the air above the grass, were thronged with insects. Through the grass came gliding soundlessly a long, smooth, sinuous brown shape with a quick-darting head and a forked, amber-coloured, flickering tongue. The snake's body was about the thickness of a man's thumb, and his back was unobtrusively but exquisitely marked with a reticulation of fine lines. He seemed to be travelling rather aimlessly, doubtless on the watch for any small quarry he might catch sight of; but when he chanced upon the fresh-dug hole where the shrew had begun his burrowing, he stopped abruptly. His fixed, opaque-looking eyes grew strangely intent. With his head poised immediately over the hole he remained perfectly rigid for some seconds. Then he glided slowly into the burrow.

The black snake—for such he was called, in spite of his colour being brown—had an undiscriminating appetite for moles and shrews alike. It was of no concern to him that the flesh of the shrew was rank and tough; for his sense of taste was, to say the least of it, rudimentary, and to digestion so invincible as his, tough and tender were all one. He had learned, of course, that shrews were averse to being swallowed, and that they both could and would put up a stiff fight against such consummation. But he had never yet captured one in such a position that he could not get his coils around and crush it. What he expected to find in the burrow which he entered so confidently was a satisfying meal, followed by a long, safe sleep to companion digestion.

As he trailed along the winding of the tunnel, his motion made a faint, dry, whispering sound. This delicate sound, together with his peculiar, sickly, elusive scent, travelled just before him, and reached the doorway of the little chamber where the shrew was sleeping. The sleeper awoke,—wide awake all at once, as it behoves the wild kindreds to be. Instantly, too, he understood the whole peril, and that it was even now upon him. There was no time for flight. To do him justice, it was not flight he thought of, but fight. His little heart swelled with rage at this invasion of his rest. Experienced fighter that he was, he fully understood the advantages of his situation. As the head of the invader stole past his doorway, he sprang, and sank his long, punishing teeth deep into the back of the snake's neck.

With this hold the advantage was all his, so long as he could maintain it; and he hung to the grip like a bulldog, biting deeper and deeper every minute. Fettered completely by the narrowness of the tunnel, unable to lash or coil or strike, the snake could only writhe impotently and struggle to drag his adversary farther down the burrow toward some roomier spot where his own tactics would have a chance. But the shrew was not to be dislodged from his point of vantage. He clung to his doorway no less doggedly than he clung to his hold; and all the while his deadly teeth were biting deeper in. At last, they found the backbone,—and bit it through. With a quiver the writhing of the big snake stopped.

Victor though he was, the shrew was slow to accept conviction of his victory over so mighty an antagonist. Though all resistance had ceased, he kept on gnawing and worrying, till he had succeeded in completely severing the head from the trunk. Then, feeling that his triumph was secured, he turned back into his chamber and curled up again to resume his rudely interrupted siesta.

Having thus effectually established his lordship of the burrows, this small champion might have reasonably expected to enjoy an undisturbed and unanxious slumber. But Fate is pitilessly whimsical in its dealings with the wild kindreds. It chanced at this time that a red fox came trotting down along the pasture fence. He seemed to have a very vague idea of where he was going or what he wanted to do. Presently he took it into his head that he wanted to cross the pasture, so he forsook the fence and started off over the grass; and as luck would have it, his keen, investigating nose sniffed the sod just at the point whereunder the sleeping shrew lay hidden. The turf that formed the little fighter's ceiling was not more than half an inch in thickness.

The smell that came up through the grass-roots was strong, and not particularly savoury. But the red fox was not overparticular just then. He would have chosen rabbit or partridge had Mother Nature consulted his wishes more minutely. But as it was he saw no reason to turn up his sharp nose at shrew. After a few hasty but discreet sniffings, which enabled him to locate the careless slumberer, he pounced upon the exact spot and fell to clawing the sod ferociously. His long nails and powerful fore paws tore off the thin covering of turf in less time than it takes to tell of it, and the next instant the shrew was hurled out into the sunlight, dazzled and half stunned. Almost before he touched the grass a pair of narrow jaws snapped him up. Without a moment's delay the fox turned and trotted off up the pasture with his prey, toward his den on the other side of the hill; and as the discriminating sunlight peered down into the uncovered tunnel, in a few minutes flies came to investigate, and many industrious beetles. The body of the dead snake was soon a centre of teeming, hungry, busy life, toiling to remove all traces of what had happened. For Nature, though she works out almost all her ends by tragedy, is ceaselessly attentive to conceal the red marks of her violence.