Bannertail 



ing, and now to be silenced by counter- 

 doings, just as a single trail in the sand 

 is wholly blotted out by a later trail 

 much used that goes counterwise across 

 it. 



Just a little pause made he, when the 

 sick smell of the nearest toadstool was felt 

 and measured by his nose. The lust for 

 that strong foody taste was overdominat- 

 ing. He seized and crunched and rev- 

 elled in the flowing juices and the rank 

 nut taste, the pepper tang, the toothsome 

 mouthiness, and gobbled with growing 

 unreined greed, not one, but two or three 

 — he gorged on them ; and though stuffed 

 and full, still filled with lust that is to 

 hunger what wounding is to soft caress. 

 He rushed from one madcap toadstool to 

 another, driving in his teeth, revelling in 

 their flowing juices, like the blood of 

 earthy gnomes, and rushed for joy up one 

 tall tree after another. Then, sensing the 



[178] 



