There he
stood, braced and head low; a child might have caught him by the mane and
toppled him upon his side, and already his hind legs were buckling.
"Get on!" cried Barry.
There was a lift of the head, a quivering of the tensed nostrils, but that
was all. He seemed to be dying on his feet, when the master whistled. The
sound cut through the rushing of the Asper as a ray of light probes a dark
room, shrill, harsh, like the hissing of some incredible snake, and Satan
went an uncertain step forward, reeled, almost fell; but the shoulder of
the master was at his side lifting up, and the arm of the master was under
his chest, raising. He tried another step; he went on among the trees with
his forelegs sprawling and his head drooped as though he were trying to
crop grass. Black Bart did his part to recall that flagging spirit.
Sometimes it was his snarl that startled the black; sometimes he leaped,
and his teeth clashed a hair's breadth from Satan's nose.
By degrees the congealing blood flowed freely again through Satan's body;
he no longer staggered; and now he lifted a forepaw and struck vaguely at
Bart as the wolf-dog leaped.
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