IN NIGHTMARE’S GRIP. 
pe high tide of the day was at hand. In 
another few minutes it would turn. And 
the sun possessed the land. 
All across the big grass field where the 
parties of young starlings dropped to feed, and 
vanished like diving birds into a green sea, it 
played in shimmering heat-haze. 
It flashed from the chestnut-and-white 
cattle quietly feeding; it flashed from the 
white rumps and breasts of the sweeping, 
swerving - house-martins; it danced in a 
hundred sparks of every rainbow hue off 
the wings of the glancing, darting flies. 
All the field was drowsy, it seemed; and 
even though pestered by a swarm of flies, the 
slow, contented cattle merely swished their 
long tails or flapped their mobile ears. 
Then, quite suddenly, one old cow—she 
who carried some nasty tumours on her back 
—flung up her head. She stood motionless, 
erect, ‘frozen’ in her place—at gaze. 
A pause followed; then every head went 
up, each beast steadfast in its place. 
The old cow who had first given the alarm 
—and, seemingly, passed it to the others 
through her body—turned her head, and 
