Jane woke at the time she'd mentally set: at about one o'clock in the afternoon. At once aware of the absence of her companion, she was not perturbed at first; no doubt Carol had wandered off into the maze of gorse trunks. Jane stretched where she lay, yawned, and rose to all-fours. Then she padded back under the dim, green roof of her hiding place to where she'd entered it, keeping a sharp watch for any sign of her cousin.

She saw and heard nothing of Carol in her passage, and she emerged from the gorse to look down towards the woods still none the wiser. Jane scanned the fringes of the wood, still with the same negative result. Carol, she decided, had gone to drink.

Jane moved swiftly and easily down the little depressions and over the tiny ridges over the rough ground. She ran on all-fours with the ease of long practice, her rear legs straight and her rump in the air, pausing every so often to lift her fore paws from the ground to enable her to raise her head and check her surroundings. Once inside the cover of the trees she stood upright and flitted like a ghost between the trunks until she reached the stream. There she drank, and, after drinking her fill she cast around for her cousin before realising the futility of the enterprise. Her belly swollen with the water she'd drunk, Jane trotted slowly through the woods until she reached an appropriate place to deposit her droppings, though she doubted whether either the Ladies or their slaves had the skill to tell from their condition how long they'd been there. Above all, she was determined that no signs of occupancy would be found anywhere near her hiding place. Then she made her way back to the gorse-covered hillock. Carol had not returned, and Jane lay down in her sentinel's postion over-looking the yard and dozed off.

The first stirring of the cooler breeze that sprung up in mid-afternoon woke Jane. After relieving herself, she went back to her position to spy on the Huntresses. Carol was still absent, and Jane hoped fervently that she'd have the sense to remain hidden and still until the Hunt was called off for the day.

Once more the carts drove out, this time with the addition of the slaves captured that morning in the roles of 'hunting dogs'. Jane was unconcerned; when they'd passed from her sight she wriggled quickly through the gorse and chose a vantage point which allowed her a view to the South.

She saw the remaining slaves quickly rounded up; as she'd thought, the occasion was not wholly serious. And then she saw the capture of her cousin.

The black cart had lagged behind the others on their triumphant way back to the Manor and was out of Carol's sight when she stepped blithely out from the cover of the trees.

The same cool breeze that had wakened Jane and caused the Hunt to restart had woken Carol too, and she trotted through the wood enjoying the fresh coolness of the air on her now clean skin. Despite being thoroughly lost, she had no fear of being unable to find their hideaway, for all she needed to do was to go out far enough on the open turf and look around her for the low, gorse-clad eminence where it lay.

Reaching the fringe of the wood, she lay flat on the ground and wriggled forwards , congratulating herself on her caution. She, too, saw the brightly-coloured carts; she, too, saw the newly-captured slaves being led away leashed to the rear of the carts.

After waiting ten minutes, as she reckoned it, she rose and walked confidently out into the open.

Twenty yards, then forty yards straight out from the trees she came. The place she'd left cover from took the shape of a little bay, with narrow promontories of thin-scattered trees to her left and right. Carol knew that her goal lay to her left, for she could see its low summit, but instead of cutting through the few trees towards it, she chose to continue out into the open until she could walk around them.

Jane could do nothing but watch with horror as the sinister black cart appeared around the point of the Southern stand of trees, moving at a walking-pace and attended by three 'dogs'. Carol was then two hundred yards from cover, and Lady Noire stiffened in surprise at the sight of her unsuspecting prey. Acting quickly and decisively, she waved her three 'dogs' off to her left; one by one they vanished into the fringes of the woods.

The Lady's plan was obvious to Jane; she meant to infiltrate her 'dogs' along Carol's flank, then she would drive her pony after her quarry, forcing her further out onto the open turf or into the arms of the waiting 'dogs'.

The unsuspecting Carol strolled on in the warm, turf-scented air, behind her, when she judged the moment was ripe, Lady Noire brought down her whip hard across the haunches of her giant black 'pony' and he leapt forward with amazing speed, straight for Carol, three hundred yards away.

The breeze was in her face, and she heard nothing of the cart's advance until it was fifty yards behind her. She turned, startled, then raced away at full speed. Instead of angling off to the woods, using her greater agility to escape the lumbering 'pony', she ran straight on, trusting in her superior speed over the man handicapped by the weight of his cart and its driver.

Then it was too late. At their Mistress's signal, the 'dogs' emerged from Carol's left, one a little ahead of her, one level with her and the third to her left rear. Forced further and further away to her right and open country, Carol ran with desperation. The two nearest 'dogs', fit and rangy men despite their years, gained upon her fleeing figure inexorably. Then Jane saw just how the 'dogs' trapped their prey. It was a brutally simple technique; they merely ran into Carol, knocking her from her feet. When she tried to rise, they pushed her down with their hips, knees and thighs. A quarter of a mile away in her aerie, Jane ground her teeth as she saw the black cart halt nearby and Lady Noire make a languid descent, walk over to Carol's prostrate body, and place a narrow, black-sandalled foot on her neck.

The rest was quick. Carol, her fore arms strapped together in an arm binder behind her back, her face wet with tears, was leashed to the very front of the left-hand shaft of the cart. Lady Noire's whip rose and fell twice; once upon the rump of her black 'pony', once across the right buttock of her tiny captive. The cart moved forward, dragging Carol with it.

Jane went back to overlook the yard again. There she saw her cousin led in and the 'dogs', their arms released, were dismissed to their cages, all of which would be occupied until the last fugitive, Jane herself, was captured. Lady Noire herself led her captive away, around the corner of the house and out of Jane's sight.

Jane lay in deep thought, resolving her plans for the night. In a couple of hours the Hunt would officially finish for the day with an hour of immunity before sunset. At its beginning, a slave would be sent out with food to a prearranged spot, but Jane had no intention of going there in daylight. She would wait until after nightfall, when the nearly full moon rose at eleven o'clock. Nor did she intend to rely on the few morsels of food they would provide in this manner; she had a much better and more attractive alternative in mind. Curling up, she prepared herself for sleep.

She was awake to see the moon rise, and, after half an hour, she judged there was enough light for her to depart her hiding place. Slipping surely through the gorse trunks, she emerged into the open and trotted over the moonlit turf secure from observation. In the little glade designated for the purpose she found the small heap of food left out for her. It was pig meal, as she'd suspected, coarse, fibrous and smelly; and there was little enough of it. But she ate it anyway; she didn't want her prime source of food to be suspected. Then she trotted confidently away towards the dark bulk of the Manor and its outbuildings.

She found the entry to the yard that she'd suspected; through an outlying orchard. But first, a hundred yards from her destination, she dropped to all-fours lest the little transmitter was switched on. Pushing aside the flimsy wicker hurdle set there to deter the sheep from entering, she came out into the yard. Crouching in the deepest shadows she could find, she waited patiently.

Jane smelt the fox before she saw it, then she watched as it slunk cautiously into the yard and up to a plastic bin. Expertly, it rose on its hind legs and knocked off the plastic lid. With its front paws hooked over the edge of the bin, the fox pulled it over, releasing a flood of food scraps over the floor. Its head lowered, and it snuffled up those that it fancied with feverish hunger.

Long after it had gone, Jane came out of cover. She knew the fox would spurn all the vegetable scraps, and she made a good meal of what the fox had left. She had no qualms about it; after all, she'd lived for months on what the dogs she'd lived with had left her. Licking her lips, she looked around at the moonlit cages in which the captured slaves were snoring, then went in search of her cousin.

Padding along the corridor in the stables off which the pony stalls opened, she peered through the barred doors. But, though several 'ponies' were tethered in them, none was Carol. The door to the small barn in which their cage still stood was open, but the cage itself was empty.

Jane sat upon her haunches in the moonlight. Perhaps her cousin was at that moment curled up asleep, chained to the wall, on the thick, soft carpet of Lady Noire's bedroom, now the lapdog of her captor, a fate Jane had sworn to avoid. Around the corner, in a little yard of its own, was a lone cattle pen of concrete and steel, and Jane padded over to investigate. Over in the corner formed by the junction of two walls, something bulky lay upon a pile of straw. Jane lay on her belly and wriggled beneath the horizontal steel bars. It was a tight squeeze, but she managed it at last and crawled over the concrete floor to the corner where the figure lay.

It was indeed her cousin, but a brief examination told Jane that her vague hopes of being able to rescue her were foiled in advance. Carol's face was strangely blank in the moonlight, its lower portion was covered by a leather muzzle, and she was blindfolded, too. Her ankles were linked by a short, thick chain between thick leather ankle cuffs, and she was chained by a six-foot chain from her collar to a steel ring set about four feet high in the wall behind her. None of these could Jane remove with her animal-helpless paws; for that matter she couldn't even open the gate of the pen. She nuzzled her cousin's shoulder, trying not to weep at the sound of Carol's heart-broken whimpers. Her cousin rose clumsily to her feet, and Jane was about to follow suit when she realised that the tiny switch on her cousin's collar was turned off. But she tried to rise all the same, only to fall back to all-fours with a grunt of pain. Hopelessly, Jane stared up at her cousin, tethered blind and helpless in her pen. She stayed with her as long as she dared before slipping away with a heavy heart, raging at Lady Noire's cruelty.

It was some consolation to see the return of the dejected Ladies the next morning from their fruitless quest, but while they were away Jane had been treated to the spectacle of her cousin being exercised, walked slowly back and forth on a short leash on a stretch of turf by the yard gate, still blind, muzzled and hobbled. Worse for her was the return of Lady Noire in her black cart. Dismounting, she tossed the rins to a waiting slave, than signalled the slave leading Carol to let go of her leash. Carol stood uncertainly, not sure of what was happening, and Lady Noire flicked her on her lower left thigh with her whip, causing Carol to utter a little stifled gasp of surprise and pain.

Lady Noire continued to torment her blind and helpless captive, walking silently round and round her, flicking her with her whip from every angle until Carol, confused and terrified, tripped on her hobble and fell down. Hauled brutally to her feet by a slave, she was led off into the yard while the watching Jane wept with fury.

Later, in the full heat of early afternoon when she was confident that the the Ladies would be asleep, Jane slipped away to drink and to empty her bowels in the spot she'd chosen far away from her hiding place.

It was really hot now, and airless, and the sky held a high haze. The weather-wise Jane anticipated a thunderstorm. She was not far from her own country, the pattern was familiar, and a mischievous idea came to her.

Deliberately, she washed herself clean in a stream, then, instead of returning to the gorse-covered hill-top when the air cooled, she wandered as far from it as possible, loitering in the open, her eyes fixed in the direction of the Manor.

When the gaily-painted carts came into view Jane's little pink body was clearly visible against the background of the woods. Faint cries of triumph came to her ears, and the 'ponies' were whipped into a run. The 'dogs', now numbering fifteen, spread out into a hollow concave crescent and ran towards her. She let them get within two hundred yards before she affected to notice them for the first time. Turning, she loped into the woods in simulated terror.

There, on the broad paths and among the thick undergrowth, Jane led the Hunt on a merry dance, flitting silently along in contrast to the crashing of the clumsy male bodies of the 'dogs'. Occasionally she showed herself, luring the Hunt deeper and deeper into the woods while all the time the sky above them grew darker and more ominous.

Jane felt, rather than heard, the first rumble of thunder. A sudden breeze, hot as from a furnace, stirred the tree tops, and Jane went to ground under the thick cover of a large clump of bracken and brambles on the edge of the large clearing in which the Hunt, tired and angry, had gathered. Within minutes she heard a far off sound, rapidly nearing, as if of surf on the shore, and she grinned happily to herself in anticipation.

The first huge raindrops pattered down simultaneously with an earth-shaking clap of thunder directly overhead. Jane heard the Ladies cry out in fear and outrage before the downpour blotted them out of her vision. The rain stopped abruptly, the temperature dropped, and hail, borne on the South-Westerly gale, lashed the clearing, turning the muddy ground into a seething mass of white. When it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, the Ladies were huddling under the inadequate shelter of a large oak tree, their delicate Edwardian-style finery soaked and muddy, their flimsy parasols tattered. The 'dogs' had dispersed in all directions seeking shelter while the unfortunate 'ponies', abandoned by their drivers and maddened by the stinging hail, had wandered off. Those who had not been tethered, that is; those like Lady Noire's giant black 'pony', left by her blindfolded as well as tethered, had no choice but to endure the storm. The black cart was within a few yards of Jane's hiding place; when the rain of the last flurry of the storm began again she crouched by the wheel furthest from the huddled group of Huntresses. The big 'butterfly' nut which held the wheel on the axle was easily turned with her mitted hands, and she loosened it as much as she dared. Then, without a backward glance, she ran off into the thinning rain.

Dry and comfortable under the gorse, Jane lay at her ease and watched the sorry procession come into view. The sun was now fully out, and steam rose from the soaked and bedraggled finery of the dejected Ladies as their tired 'ponies' trudged along over the damp turf, their 'dogs' following in a single exhausted huddle. A full hundred yards behind them came the black cart driven by Lady Noire, even her huge 'pony' scarcely able to summon up a trot. Jane observed the nearside wheel keenly; was it developing a wobble? Apparently it was, for it suddenly dropped off its axle, causing the cart to lurch heavily to its side and tipping its driver unceremoniously on to the muddy turf. Jane revelled in her enemy's shriek of alarm and outrage, and giggled at the sight of her sprawling on the ground. Bereft of assistance, the furious Lady blindfolded her 'pony' and trudged away, leaving him to be fetched in later by Mistress Sarah's house slaves. Hugging herself with laughter, Jane watched her vanish around the side of the Manor.

Lying on her back, her head resting comfortably on her crossed arms, Jane gave full vent to her elation. All alone, a tiny, naked, hunted animal, she had outwitted her numerous pursuers and rendered them ridiculous in their own eyes. Behind closed eye lids she played out the memory of Lady Noire's discomforture. Smiling, she fell asleep.

Back in the Manor, bathed, perfumed and in clean, dry garments, Lady Noire stood in the Billiard Room thoughtfully examining the huge relief map of the Estate, complete in every detail, ignoring the occasional burst of outraged speech from the Drawing Room behind her where the other Ladies restored themselves with tea. They had only just reached the uncomfortable conclusion that their ordeal had been deliberately contrived by their quarry, but Lady Noire had been sure of it for some time.

"Where are you, little pale beast?" she murmured. "Where are you hiding? Where are you getting all your food?"

There was only one answer to that as a few questions to her Hostess's kitchen slaves confirmed. Afterwards, she walked past the row of cages in which crouched the unfortunate 'dogs' and thought that they, at least, would be keen to capture the sole survivor of the Hunt as until then they'd be kept caged at nights. She needed allies, but she needed somehow to enlist their aid without the other Ladies getting wind of her plans.

Thoughtfully, she wandered into the small adjoining yard and into the pen where she kept her captive. The little creature shrank instinctively from her touch as she ran a hand down its flanks and thighs, noting the long, firm muscles under its grimy skin. She would come back and feed it later she had already trained it to eat from her gloved hand and tomorrow she would have it harnessed to a light racing cart. Then she would test its strength and endurance. But now she would consult Mistress Sarah.



The pattern of the previous night repeated itself; Jane, having rolled thoroughly in the dirt beneath the gorse, went unnoticed as she scavenged for food and paid a regretful visit to her helpless cousin. Long before dawn she was back in hiding and asleep.