the Great Hangman; and he followed the trail until sunrise was shimmering down the level sea and filling with aerial gold the clouds over the Welsh hills.
At dusk the shore-rats on Wild Pear Beach, searching the weed-strewn tide-line, paused and squealed together when their sharp noses took the musky scent of water-weasels. They ran off chittering as terrible shapes galloped among them. A rat was picked up and killed in a swift bite. The cub did not want it for food; he killed it in fun. He ran into the sea after White-tip, who had been taking care of them since their mother had been trapped under the waterfall.
Six hours later Tarka ran up Wild Pear Beach and his thin, hard cries pierced the slop and wash of waves on the loose, worn, shaley strand. He followed the trail over the weeds to the otters’ sleeping place under a rock, and down again to the sea. In a pool off Briery Cave he scented otter again, for at the bottom of the pool lay a wicker pot, holding something that turned slowly as the ribbons of the thong-weed lifted and dropped in the water. The long blue feelers of a lobster were feeling through the wickerwork; it was gorged, and trying to get out from the otter cub it had been eating. The cub had found no way out of the cage it had entered at high tide, intending to eat the lobster.
Hu-ee-ic! Tarka did not know the dead. Nothing answered, and he swam away, among green phosphoric specks that glinted at every wave-lop.
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