Piece by piece, he ate all the meat, and nothing happened.Still the punishment delayed.He licked his chops and waited.The god went on talking.In his voice was kindness -- something of which White Fang had no experience whatever.
And within him it aroused feelings which he had likewise never experienced before.He was aware of a certain strange satisfaction, as though some need were being gratified, as though some void in his being were being filled.Then again came the prod of his instinct and the warning of past experience.The gods were ever crafty, and they had unguessed ways of attaining their ends.
Ah, he had thought so! There it came now, the god's hand, cunning to hurt, thrusting out at him, descending upon his head.But the god went on talking.His voice was soft and soothing.In spite of the menacing hand, the voice inspired confidence.And in spite of the assuring voice, the hand inspired distrust.White Fang was torn by conflicting feelings, impulses.
It seemed he would fly to pieces, so terrible was the control he was exerting, holding together by an unwonted indecision the counter-forces that struggled within him for mastery.
He compromised.He snarled and bristled and flattened his ears.But he neither snapped nor sprang away.The hand descended.Nearer and nearer it came.It touched the ends of his upstanding hair.He shrank down under it.It followed down after him, pressing more closely against him.Shrinking, almost shivering, he still managed to hold himself together.It was a torment, this hand that touched him and violated his instinct.He could not forget in a day all the evil that had been wrought him at the hands of men.But it was the will of the god, and he strove to submit.
The hand lifted and descended again in a patting, caressing movement.
This continued, but every time the hand lifted, the hair lifted under it.