THE TUNNEL RUNNERS 225 



the great fish was close upon him. With a 

 convulsive effort that almost burst his heart, 

 he gained the air-chamber, scrambled half- 

 way out of the water, and then, in that 

 cramped space, turned at bay, game to the 

 last gasp. 



To his amazement, the great pike was not 

 at his tail, Instead, he was still some three 

 or four feet away, out there just in the de- 

 scending beam of light from the hole in the 

 ice. The mysterious lump of pork had dis- 

 appeared, but the gasping brown mouse did 

 not notice that. His attention was en- 

 grossed in the amazing and terrifying per- 

 formances of the pike. The long grey-green 

 body was darting this way and that, in 

 and out of the beam of light, but never any 

 great space out of it. The great jaws shook 

 savagely from side to side, and then the mouse 

 saw that from between them a slender gleam- 

 ing cord extended upwards through the 

 hole. A moment more, and the pike sprang 

 straight up, with a heavy swirl of the water, 

 and vanished above the ice. 



It was incomprehensible ; and there was 

 something altogether appalling about it. The 

 brown mouse shivered. For several minutes 

 he crouched there quite still, more utterly 

 panic-stricken than he had ever been before 



