Lilith

I sprang to my feet, cold and wet, but clear−headed and strong. Had the blow revived me? it had left neither
wound nor pain!−−But how came I wet?−−I could not have lain long, for the moon was no higher!
The lady stood some yards away, her back toward me. She was doing something, I could not distinguish
what. Then by her sudden gleam I knew she had thrown off her garments, and stood white in the dazed moon.
One moment she stood−−and fell forward.
A streak of white shot away in a swift−drawn line. The same instant the moon recovered herself, shining out
with a full flash, and I saw that the streak was a long−bodied thing, rushing in great, low−curved bounds over
the grass. Dark spots seemed to run like a stream adown its back, as if it had been fleeting along under the
edge of a wood, and catching the shadows of the leaves.
"God of mercy!" I cried, "is the terrible creature speeding to the night−infolded city?" and I seemed to hear
from afar the sudden burst and spread of outcrying terror, as the pale savage bounded from house to house,
rending and slaying.
While I gazed after it fear−stricken, past me from behind, like a swift, all but noiseless arrow, shot a second
large creature, pure white. Its path was straight for the spot where the lady had fallen, and, as I thought, lay.
My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. I sprang forward pursuing the beast. But in a moment the spot I
made for was far behind it.
"It was well," I thought, "that I could not cry out: if she had risen, the monster would have been upon her!"
But when I reached the place, no lady was there; only the garments she had dropped lay dusk in the
moonlight.
I stood staring after the second beast. It tore over the ground with yet greater swiftness than the former−−in
long, level, skimming leaps, the very embodiment of wasteless speed. It followed the line the other had taken,
and I watched it grow smaller and smaller, until it disappeared in the uncertain distance.
But where was the lady? Had the first beast surprised her, creeping upon her noiselessly? I had heard no
shriek! and there had not been time to devour her! Could it have caught her up as it ran, and borne her away
to its den? So laden it could not have run so fast! and I should have seen that it carried something!
Horrible doubts began to wake in me. After a thorough but fruitless search, I set out in the track of the two
animals.
Lilith
CHAPTER XXI. THE FUGITIVE MOTHER
As I hastened along, a cloud came over the moon, and from the gray dark suddenly emerged a white figure,
clasping a child to her bosom, and stooping as she ran. She was on a line parallel with my own, but did not
perceive me as she hurried along, terror and anxiety in every movement of her driven speed.
"She is chased!" I said to myself. "Some prowler of this terrible night is after her!"
To follow would have added to her fright: I stepped into her track to stop her pursuer.
As I stood for a moment looking after her through the dusk, behind me came a swift, soft−footed rush, and
ere I could turn, something sprang over my head, struck me sharply on the forehead, and knocked me down. I
was up in an instant, but all I saw of my assailant was a vanishing whiteness. I ran after the beast, with the
blood trickling from my forehead; but had run only a few steps, when a shriek of despair tore the quivering
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