To my mind Palus and Murmex were
manifestly playing with each other, like fox-cubs or Molossian puppies or
wolf-cubs; yet the sport so much resembled actual attack and defence, as
with nearly grown wolf-cubs, that it gave less the impression of play
between friends than that of deadly combat between envenomed foes. Many a
time I have heard or overheard some expert or connoisseur or enthusiast or
provincial visitor, prophesy somewhat in this fashion:
"Some day one of those two is going to kill the other unexpectedly and
unintentionally and by mistake. Each thinks the other will never land on
him; each thinks the other has a guard so impregnable that it will never
be pierced; each uses on the other attacks so unexpected, so sudden, so
subtle, so swift, so powerful, so sustained, so varied that no third man
alive could escape any one of them. It is almost a certainty that that
sort of thing cannot go on forever. One or the other of them may age
sufficiently to retire from the arena, as did Murmex Frugi, safe and
unscarred, as he was not. But it is far more likely, since both are full
of vitality and vigor, that neither will notice the very gradual approach
of age, so that they will go on fighting with eyes undimmed, muscles
supple and minds quick, yet not so quick, supple and keen as now: but the
preternatural powers of one will wane a bit sooner than those of the
other.
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