His apprehension speedily giving way to injured pride, the eagle flew upwards, in short, steep spirals, as fast as his wings could drive him. Not till he could once more look down upon the fat back of the glistening yellow monster did he regain his mood of unruffled calm. But he regained it only to have it stripped from him, a minute later, with tenfold lack of ceremony. For far above him--so high that even his undaunted wings would never venture thither--he heard a fierce and terrible humming sound. He saw something like a colossal bird--or rather, it was more suggestive of a dragonfly than a bird--speeding towards him with never a single beat of its vast, pale wings. Its speed was appalling. The eagle was afraid, but not with any foolish panic. He knew that even as a sparrow would be to him, so would he be to this unheard-of sovereign of the skies. Therefore it was possible the sovereign of the skies would ignore him and seek a more worthy opponent. Yes, it was heading towards the giant sausage. And the sausage, plainly, had no stomach for the encounter. It seemed to shrink suddenly; and with sickening lurches it began to descend, as if strong hands were tugging upon the cords which anchored it to earth. The eagle winged off modestly to one side, but not far enough to miss anything of the stupendous encounter which he felt was coming. Here, at last, were events of a strangeness and a terror to move even his cool spirit out of its indifference. Now the giant insect was near enough for the eagle to mark that it had eyes on the under-sides of its wings--immense, round, coloured eyes of red and white and blue. Its shattering hum shook the eagle's nerves, steady and seasoned though they were. Slanting slightly downwards, it darted straight toward the sausage, which was now wallowing fatly in its convulsive efforts to descend. At the same time the eagle caught sight of another of the giant birds, or insects, somewhat different in shape and colour from the first, darting up from the opposite direction. Was it, too, he wondered, coming to attack the terrified sausage, or to defend it? Before he could find an answer to this exciting question, the first monster had arrived directly above the sausage and was circling over it at some height, glaring down upon it with those great staring eyes of its wings. Something struck the sausage fairly in the back. Instantly, with a tremendous windy roar, the sausage vanished in a sheet of flame. The monster far above it rocked and plunged in the uprush of tormented air, the waves of which reached even to where the eagle hung poised, and forced him to flap violently in order to keep his balance against them.