The kitten feels no fear; on the contrary, he is filled with hate. The fury of madness flames in his eyes, and a white scum begins to froth round his mouth.
The crow sits just before him on the branch, making vicious pecks at his nose and eyes in the hope of overbalancing him. Suddenly Black gathers his back legs beneath him and, in the same moment that his enemy makes a fresh dart at him, launches himself forward.
The old crow is swept helplessly backwards by the reckless fury of the assault. The next moment they are both whirling through the air towards the ground.
Black, however, knows nothing of this. He is utterly engrossed in the large, warm piece of meat, into which he now plunges his hind claws also, biting and tearing all the while at the bird’s neck-feathers with his short, pointed teeth.
They crash to the earth ... but continue fighting with unabated fury, wrestling and rolling over and over, feathers and fur-tufts flying in all directions.
The crow caws hoarsely, and struggles to break away from the kitten, whose fighting prowess it has so disastrously underestimated.
With widespread tail-feathers and frantically flapping wings it tries in vain to regain its feet, and shake off its maddened little opponent. It bites and pecks unceasingly at Black’s fur, aiming cunningly at the soft places; for it knows by instinct the cat’s most vulnerable points—eyes and nose.
But Black does not budge until the last breath is squeezed from the crow’s lifeless body.
“Madness,” having killed his foe, straight-way sits down and begins gnawing its head. At the sound of the crunching several of the other kittens, who have watched terror-stricken the great black clump flutter through the air, understand at last the nature of the situation.