The black ruffian, who considered himself the favourite suitor, arrived, as he imagined, first at the rendezvous. But simultaneously his ginger rival stuck his head through the hedge bordering the path. At sight of each other both halted abruptly, thrusting up their backs and blowing out their scarred, battle-torn cheeks.
For many minutes the two ugly fellows stood glaring silently at one another.... Then their whiskers bristled, their tattered ears disappeared, and their eyes became mere slits in their heads; hymns of hate wailed from their throats, and their tails writhed and squirmed like newly-flayed eels.
Suddenly the big, spotted cat appears in the garden. Tiger-like, with body almost brushing the ground, he glides silently past them.
They hate him, the low brute!... He is their common enemy! The sight of him caught in the act makes them allies in a flash.... They tear after him and surround him. Then they go for him tooth and nail.
All thoughts of the fair one have gone from their minds. War-cries cease; gasps and grunts of exertion punctuate the struggle; chests heave and ribs dilate with compressed air; whilst naked claws are plunged into skin and flesh. They are one to look at, one circular mass, as they whirl round inextricably interlocked, puffing their reeking breath into one another’s faces.
The spotted devil’s powerful hind legs are wedged in under the red cat’s body. With his forepaws he grips him as if in a vice—and now thrusting the needle-pointed, razor-edged horn daggers from their sheaths, he straightens his hind legs simultaneously to a terrible, resistless, lacerating lunge....
With a stifled hiss of fury the squire’s cat falls back. It limps moaning from the battlefield, with blood pouring from its stomach.
Now comes the old black thief’s turn! First the hair flies ... it literally steams from the two rivals as they rush at each other. Their incredible activity is expressed in every movement.... After lying interlocked for some time on the ground they suddenly break away, and, as if by witchcraft, stand on all fours again.
The piebald is winning!
His claws comb like steel rakes. They tear the hair from the bailiff-cat’s flanks, leaving them bare and shining. The latter often succeeds in parrying, and returns kick for kick, but his hind legs lack strength, and he cannot complete a full thrust.