Sister Teresa. George Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ by speed of wing, and is used principally for ground game, rabbits, and hares. He was told that it seized the hare or the rabbit by the hind quarters and moved up, finding the heart and lungs with its talons. So he waited eagerly for a hare to steal out of the cover; but none appeared, much to the bird's disappointment—a female, and a very fine specimen, singularly tame and intelligent. The hawk seemed to understand quite well what was happening, and watched for an opportunity of distinguishing herself, looking round eagerly; and so eager was she that sometimes she fell from the falconer's wrist, who took no notice, but let her hang until she fluttered up again; and when Owen reproved his cruelty, he answered:

      "She is a very intelligent bird and will not hang by her legs longer than she wants to."

      It was in the afternoon that her chance came, and a rare one it was. Two bustards rose out of a clump of cacti growing about a deserted hermitage. The meeting of the birds must have been a chance one, for they went in different directions, and flying swiftly, soon would have put the desert between themselves, and the falconers, and each other, if the bird going eastward had not been frightened by the Arabs coming up from the lake, and, losing its head, it turned back, and flying heavily over the hawking party, gave the goshawk her single chance, a chance which was nearly being missed, the hawk not making up her mind at once to go in pursuit; she had been used for hunting ground game; and for some little while it was not certain that the bustard would not get away; this would have been a pity, for, as Owen learned afterwards, the bird is of great rarity, almost unknown.

      "She will get him, she will get him!" the falconer cried, seeing his hawk now flying with determination, and a moment after the bustard was struck down.

      As far as sport was concerned the flight was not very interesting, but the bustard is so rarely seen and so wary a bird that even the Arabs, who are not sportsmen, will talk with interest about it, and Owen rode up curious to see this almost fabulous bird, known in the country as the habara, a bird which some ornithologists deny to be the real bustard. Bustard or no bustard, the bird was very beautiful, six or seven pounds in weight, the size of a small turkey, and covered with the most beautiful feathers, pale yellow speckled with brown, a long neck and a short, strong beak, long black legs with three toes, the fourth, the spur, missing. That a hawk should knock over a bustard had not happened often, and he regretted that he knew not how to save the bird's skin, for though stuffed birds are an abomination, one need not always be artistic. And there were plenty at Riversdale. His grandfather had filled many cases, and this rare bird merited the honour of stuffing. All the same, it would have to be eaten, and with the trophy hanging on his saddle bow Owen rode back to the encampment, little thinking he was riding to see the flight which he had been longing to see all his life.

      One of the falconers had sent up a cast of hawks, and an Arab had ridden forward in the hope of driving some ducks out of the reeds; but instead a heron rose and, flopping his great wings, went away, stately and decorative, into the western sky. The hawks were far away down on the horizon, and there was a chance that they might miss him; but the falconer waved his lure, and presently the hawks came back; it was then only that the heron divined his danger, and instead of trying to outdistance his pursuers as the other birds had done, and at the cost of their lives, he flopped his wings more vigorously, ringing his way up the sky, knowing, whether by past experience or by instinct, that the hawks must get above him. And the hawks went up, the birds getting above the heron. Soon the attack would begin, and Owen remembered that the heron is armed with a beak on which a hawk might be speared, for is it not recorded that to defend himself the heron has raised his head and spitted the descending hawk, the force of the blow breaking the heron's neck and both birds coming down dead together.

      "Now will this happen?" he asked himself as he watched the birds now well above the heron. "That one," Owen cried, "is about to stoop."

      And down came the hawk upon the heron, but the heron swerved cleverly. Owen followed the beautiful shape of the bird's long neck and beak, and the trailing legs. The second hawk stooped. "Ah! now he is doomed," Owen cried. But again the heron dodged the hawk cleverly, and the peregrine fell past him, and Owen saw the tail go out, stopping the descent.

      Heron and hawks went away towards the desert, Owen galloping after them, watching the aerial battle from his saddle, riding with loose rein, holding the rein lightly between finger and thumb, leaving his horse to pick his way. Again a hawk had reached a sufficient height and stooped; again the heron dodged, and so the battle continued, the hawks stooping again and again, but always missing the heron, until at last, no doubt tired out, the heron failed to turn in time: heron and hawk came toppling out of the sky together; but not too quickly for the second hawk, which stooped and grappled the prey in mid-air.

      Owen touched his horse with the spur; and, his eyes fixed on the spot where he had seen the heron and hawks falling, he galloped, regardless of every obstacle, forgetful that a trip would cost him a broken bone, and that he was a long way from a surgeon.

      But Owen's horse picked his way very cleverly through the numerous rubble-heaps, avoiding the great stones protruding from the sand. … These seemed to be becoming more numerous; and Owen reined in his horse. … He was amid the ruins of a once considerable city, of which nothing remained but the outlying streets, some doorways, and many tombs, open every one of them, as if the dead had already been resurrected. Before him lay the broken lid of a sarcophagus and the sarcophagus empty, a little sand from the desert replacing the ashes of the dead man. Owen's horse approached it, mistaking it for a drinking trough; "and it will serve for one," he said, "in a little while after the next rainfall. Some broken capitals, fragments of columns, a wall built of narrow bricks, a few inscriptions … all that remains of Rome, dust and forgetfulness."

      About him the Arabs were seeking a heron and hawks; a falconer galloped across the plain, waving a lure, in pursuit of another hawk, so Owen was informed by his dragoman—as if falcon or heron could interest him at that moment—and he continued to peer into the inscription, leaving the Arabs to find the birds. And they were discovered presently among some marbles, the heron's wings outstretched in death, the great red wound in its breast making it seem still more beautiful.

VII

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      The lake water was salt, but there was a spring among the hills, and when the hawks were resting (they rested every second day) Owen liked to go there and lie under the tamarisks, dreaming of Sicily, of "the visionary flocks" and their shepherds no less visionary, comparing the ideal with the real, for before him flocks grazed up the hillside and his eyes followed the goats straying in quest of branches, their horns tipped with the wonderful light which threw everything into relief—the bournous of the passing bedouin, the woman's veil, whether blue or grey, the queer architecture of the camels and dromedaries coming up through a fold in the hills from the lake, following the track of the caravans, their long, bird-like necks swinging, looking, Owen thought, like a great flock of migrating ostriches.

      It was pleasant to lie and dream this pastoral country and its people, seen through a haze of fine weather which looked as if it would never end. The swallows had just come over and were tired; Owen was provoking enough to drive them out of the tamarisks just to see how tired they were, and was sorry for one poor bird which could hardly keep out of his way. Whence had they come? he asked, returning to a couch of moss. Had any of them come from Riversdale? Perhaps some had been hatched under his own eaves? (Any mention of Riversdale was sufficient to soften Owen's heart.) And now under the tamarisks his thoughts floated about that bleak house and its colonnade, thinking of a white swallow which had appeared in the park one year; friends were staying with him, every one had wanted to shoot it, but leave had not been granted; and his natural kindness of heart interested him as he lay in the shade of the tamarisks, asking himself if the white swallow would appear, thinking that the bird ought to nod to him as it passed, smiling at the thought, and the smile СКАЧАТЬ