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The First Lieutenant followed suit, and between them they dragged their struggling victim to the door. The bull terrier leaped around them with hysterical yelps of excitement. "Open the door, Padre," gasped the Captain of Marines as the struggle swayed to and fro. "Garm, you fool, shut up!"
He knew perfectly that the dog-boy was only obeying orders. "Another time," I said to the dog-boy, "you will wash the great dog with Vixen when I send them home." "Does he know?" said the dog-boy, who understood the ways of dogs. "Garm," I said, "another time you will be washed with Vixen." I knew that Garm understood.
The dogs left their lair by the fire and, led by the Garm the old blind patriarch, made a tour of inspection among the outhouses to the edge of the birch woods. Presently would come a rending of the ice on the firth, and patches of inky water would show between the floes.
There Odin rode in and down a broad, steep, slanting road which led him to the cavern Gnipa, and the mouth of the cavern Gnipa yawned upon Niflheim. Then thought Odin to himself, "My journey is already done." But just as Sleipnir was about to leap through the jaws of the pit, Garm, the voracious dog who was chained to the rock, sprang forward, and tried to fasten himself upon Odin.
Three times Odin shook him off, and still Garm, as fierce as ever, went on with the fight. At last Sleipnir leaped, and Odin thrust just at the same moment; then horse and rider cleared the entrance, and turned eastward towards the dead Vala's grave, dripping blood along the road as they went; while the beaten Garm stood baying in the cavern's mouth.
The last train to camp left at half-past ten, and Stanley, stayed till ten talking to Garm. I argued and entreated, and even threatened to shoot the bull-terrier, but the little man was as firm as a rock, though I gave him a good dinner and talked to him most severely. Garm knew as well as I that this was the last time he could hope to see his man, and followed Stanley like a shadow.
Sometimes a company of soldiers would move along on their way to the Fort, and Garm rolled forth to inspect them; or an officer in uniform entered into the office, and it was pitiful to see poor Garm's welcome to the cloth not the man. He would leap at him, and sniff and bark joyously, then run to the door and back again.
He told me that he had been suffering from fever at intervals, and was very weak. He looked all he said, but even while I watched, both man and dog plumped out to their natural sizes, precisely as dried apples swell in water. Garin was on his shoulder, and his breast and feet all at the same time, so that Stanley spoke all through a cloud of Garin gulping, sobbing, slavering Garm.
"That's the reason why," I said. "A second-rate man wouldn't have taken things to heart as he has done." We drove in quietly at the far end of the garden, and crept round the house. There was a place close to the wall all grown about with tamarisk trees, where I knew Garm kept his bones. Even Vixen was not allowed to sit near it.
She never yapped for yapping's sake, but her shrill, high bark was known all along the Mall, and other men's terriers ki-yied in reply, and bullock-drivers looked over their shoulders and gave us the road with a grin. But Garm cared for none of these things. His big eyes were on the horizon and his terrible mouth was shut. There was another dog in the office who belonged to my chief.
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