So this hot-blooded, strenuous pair spun as one living ball across the ring, over and over, twist and twirl, upside and down, faster and faster, until the spin itself released them. Then they sat back from one another and wobbled like spent tops. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration: THEN THEY LAY HEAD TO TAIL, AND TAIL TO HEAD] The third round started dully. The brown shrew, shaken with exertion, lay on his back the better to refresh himself. The grey shrew, just as weary, crept to an eminence above and eyed him wickedly. The ring was all impatience. Both soon revived. [Illustration: THE FIELD-VOLES ON THE SKIRTS OF IT COULD ONLY SEE BETWEEN THEIR BETTERS' EARS] The brown shrew twisted corkscrew-wise, and landed arched upon his toe points. The grey shrew shot beneath him like a whiplash. Then they lay head to tail, and tail to head. The ring drew closer. The field-voles on the skirts of it could only see between their betters' ears. The bat came to a halt and stared. The Pygmy climbed two inches up, and was rewarded. For now both combatants saw red. [Illustration: THE BAT CAME TO A HALT AND STARED] They hurled themselves at random, they bit at random, they bucked and somersaulted, they spun entwined in loops and twists, in double-knotted tangles, in sinuous figures of eight. Now one was on his back and now the other--shrewmice reck little which way up they fight. Now they sped screaming up the trunk and all but reached the Pygmy; now they dropped earthward with twin thud, and grazed a red vole's nose. So without pause or respite. They tore and scratched and gripped and pulled and wrenched and tugged and jumped and squealed until----it was an earthquake, a rounded dull upheaval, a split and crackle of the moss, a sputter of dry dust, and, in the midst, like some queer fungus growth, the mole's red nose. [Illustration: THE PYGMY CLIMBED TWO INCHES UP] "Flick!" went a woodmouse tail, betokening danger. The amphitheatre emptied in a moment; voles helter-skelter into cover, bat loose into the sky. The Pygmy tumbled earthwards, shot forward, paused, whisked up again, and crept behind a flake of bark. [Illustration: NOW ONE WAS ON HIS BACK AND NOW THE OTHER] The two shrews lay amazed upon their backs, and in between them wagged the intruding nose. Slowly it lengthened. Two naked paddle-feet passed on the surface, and, like some clumsy fish that quits its element, the mole plunged into air. He missed both shrews, who, dashing right and left of him, entangled him in double-minded purpose. Rested the Pygmy, shrunk to a rigid wisp of apprehension, ear-straining, muscle-tautened, behind a flimsy screen of bark.