unearthly howl, and he could not find his arrow any more than the
beast,
although he searched all about the place where it vanished. They
laughed
at him until he was driven to hold his tongue; and said he must have
taken too long a pull at the ale-jug. But before two nights were over,
he had one to side with him; for he too had seen something strange,
only
quite different from that reported by the other. The description the
second man gave of the creature he had seen was yet more grotesque
and
unlikely. They were both laughed at by the rest; but night after night
another came over to their side, until at last there was only one left
to laugh at all his companions. Two nights more passed, and he saw
nothing; but on the third, he came rushing from the garden to the
other
two before the house, in such an agitation that they declared--for it
was their turn now--that the band of his helmet was cracking under his
chin with the rising of his hair inside it. Running with him into that
part of the garden which I have already described, they saw a score of
creatures, to not one of which they could give a name, and not one of
which was like another, hideous and ludicrous at once, gamboling on
the
Madhuri Noah
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