The stoats followed, forging ahead at their utmost pace, except when they checked their steps and stood still to look about them as is their wont; why, it is impossible to say, but certainly not to give “law” to the quarry. So several seconds ahead of them, the hare reached the pool midway between the islet and the reed-bed, plunged in, floundered through the shallows, and on getting beyond his depth, struck out for the opposite shore. Ice still covered most of the surface, but following an open channel he got more than half-way across before he found himself confronted by a sheet which, thin and rotten though it was, arrested his progress. He tried to clamber on to it but the brittle edge broke under his pads. His position was most critical. To make matters worse, the cry of his pursuers now sounded very distinct; they were evidently close to the pool. What if they took to the water and met him as he swam? For he must go back or drown. In the dilemma he turned and struck out for the shore he had left. He seemed to be swimming into the jaws of death. Soon however fortune befriended him. For as he swam he saw at one side a narrow strait just wide enough to admit him, and into it he turned as the pack took to the water, swimming swiftly and with heads held high. They must have viewed the hare had not the moon been completely obscured by a black cloud, which completely shut off the pallid beams that for a brief space had lit the moor. Soon they passed the narrow opening and approached the barrier. No barrier did it prove to them. They landed with the greatest ease, galloped over the ice, gained the shore and began casting for the quarry. Meanwhile the hare had gained the reed-bed whence, owing to the conspicuousness of the ermined stoats, he was able to follow the movements of the pack, till presently the ghostly forms were swallowed up in the darkness as they made for the further end of the pool. The hare seizing the opportunity made off, his face set for the “curlew” moor. No longer however does he move with full freedom of limb; the paralysing influence of the stoats is upon him. How he labours as if held back by some restraining hand, how slow his progress! He feels doomed, for escape is impossible and refuge there is none. Suddenly he stops, as suddenly resumes his way, but in a direction at right angles to his former course.