Peter raised himself weakly, the severed leg of the owl dropping
from his jaws. He was half blinded. Every muscle in his body
seemed to be torn and bleeding, yet in his discomfort the
thrilling conviction came to him that he had won. He tensed
himself for another attack, hugging the ground closely as he
watched and waited, but no attack came. He could hear the flutter
and wheeze of his maimed adversary, and slowly he drew himself
back--still facing the scene of battle--until in a farther patch
of gloom he turned once more to his business of following the
trail of Jolly Roger McKay.
There was no mark of bravado in his advance now. If he had
possessed an over-growing confidence, Gargantua's attack had set
it back, and he stole like a shifty fox through the night. Driven
into his brain was the knowledge that all things were not afraid
of him, for even the snapping beaks and floating gray shapes to
which he had paid but little attention had now become a deadly
menace. His egoism had suffered a jolt, a healthful reaction from
its too swift ascendency. He sensed the narrowness of his escape
without the mental action of reasoning it out, and his injuries
were secondary to the oppressive horror of the uncanny combat out
of which he had come alive. Yet this horror was not a fear.
Heretofore he had recognized the ghostly owl-shapes of night more
or less as a curious part of darkness, inspiring neither like nor
dislike in him.
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