Chapter VI: The Man with the Dancing Bear (1)

I

One day there arrived at Brine’s Rip Mills, driving in a smart trap which looked peculiarly unsuited to the rough backwoods roads, an imposing gentleman who wore a dark green Homburg hat, heavy, tan, gauntleted gloves, immaculate linen, shining boots, and a well-fitting morning suit of dark pepper-and-salt, protected from the contaminations of travel by a long, fawn-coloured dust-coat. He also wore a monocle so securely screwed into his left eye that it looked as if it had been born there.

His red and black wheels labouring noiselessly through the sawdust of the village road, he drove up to the front door of the barn-like wooden structure, which staggered under the name, in huge letters, of the CONTINENTAL HOTEL. There was no one in sight to hold the horse, so he sat in the trap and waited, with severe impatience, for some one to come out to him.

In a few moments the landlord strolled forth in his shirt-sleeves, chewing tobacco, and inquired casually what he could do for his visitor.

“I’m looking for Mr. Blackstock—Mr. J. T. Blackstock,” said the stranger with lofty politeness. “Will you be so good as to direct me to him?”

The landlord spat thoughtfully into the sawdust, to show that he was not unduly impressed by the stranger’s appearance.

“You’ll find him down to the furder end of the cross street yonder,” he answered, pointing with his thumb. “Last house towards the river. Lives with old Mrs. Amos—him an’ Woolly Billy.”

The stranger found it without difficulty, and halted his trap in front of the door. Before he could alight, a tall, rather gaunt woodsman, with kind but piercing eyes and brows knitted in an habitual concentration, appeared in the doorway and gave him courteous greeting.

“Mr. Blackstock, I presume? The Deputy Sheriff, I should say,” returned the stranger with extreme affability, descending from the trap.

“The same,” assented Blackstock, stepping forward to hitch the horse to a fence post. A big black dog came from the house and, ignoring the resplendent stranger, went up to Blackstock’s side to superintend the hitching. A slender little boy, with big china-blue eyes and a shock of pale, flaxen curls, followed the dog from the house and stopped to stare at the visitor.

The latter swept the child with a glance of scrutiny, swift and intent, then turned to his host.

“I am extraordinarily glad to meet you, Mr. Blackstock,” he said, holding out his hand. “If, as I surmise, the name of this little boy here is Master George Harold Manners Watson, then I owe you a debt of gratitude which nothing can repay. I hear that you not only saved his life, but have been as a father to him, ever since the death of his own unhappy father.”

Blackstock’s heart contracted. He accepted the stranger’s hand cordially enough, but was in no hurry to reply. At last he said slowly:

“Yes, Stranger, you’ve got Woolly Billy’s reel name all O. K. But why should _you_ thank me? Whatever I’ve done, it’s been for Woolly Billy’s own sake—ain’t it, Billy?”

For answer, Woolly Billy snuggled up against his side and clutched his great brown hand adoringly, while still keeping dubious eyes upon the stranger.

The latter took off his gloves, laughing amiably.

“Well, you see, Mr. Blackstock, I’m only his uncle, and his only uncle at that. So I have a right to thank you, and I see by the way the child clings to you how good you’ve been to him. My name is J. Heathington Johnson, of Heathington Hall, Cramley, Blankshire. I’m his mother’s brother. And I fear I shall have to tear him away from you in a great hurry, too.”

“Come inside, Mr. Johnson,” said Blackstock, “an’ sit down. We must talk this over a bit. It is kind o’ sudden, you see.”

“I don’t want to seem unsympathetic,” said the visitor kindly, “and I know my little nephew is going to resent my carrying him off.” (At these words Woolly Billy began to realize what was in the air, and clung to Blackstock with a storm of frightened tears.) “But you will understand that I have to catch the next boat from New York—and I have a thirty-mile drive before me now to the nearest railway station. _You_ know what the roads are! So I’m sure you won’t think me unreasonable if I ask you to get my nephew ready as soon as possible.”

Blackstock devoted a few precious moments to quieting the child’s sobs before replying. He remembered having found out in some way, from some papers in the drowned Englishman’s pockets or somewhere, that the name of Woolly Billy’s mother, before her marriage, was not Johnson, but O’Neil. Of course that discrepancy, he realized, might be easily explained, but his quick suspicions, sharpened by his devotion to the child, were aroused.

“We are not a rich family, by any means, Mr. Blackstock,” continued the stranger, after a pause. “But we have enough to be able to reward handsomely those who have befriended us. All _possible_ expense that my nephew may have been to you, I want to reimburse you for at once. And I wish also to make you a present as an expression of my gratitude—not, I assure you, as a payment,” he added, noticing that Blackstock’s face had hardened ominously. He took out a thick bill-book, well stuffed with bank-notes.

“Put away your money, Mr. Johnson,” said Blackstock coldly. “I ain’t taking any, thank you, for what I may have done for Woolly Billy. But what I want to know is, what authority have you to demand the child?”

“I’m his uncle, his mother’s brother,” answered the stranger sharply, drawing himself up.

“That may be, an’ then again, it mayn’t,” said Blackstock. “Do you think I’m goin’ to hand over the child to a perfect stranger, just because he comes and says he’s the child’s uncle? What proofs have you?”

The visitor glared angrily, but restrained himself and handed Blackstock his card.

Blackstock read it carefully.

“What does that prove?” he demanded sarcastically. “It might not be your card! An’ even if you are ‘Mr. Johnson’ all right, that’s not proving that Mr. Johnson is the little feller’s uncle! I want legal proof, that would hold in a court of law.”

“You insolent blockhead!” exclaimed the visitor. “How dare you interfere between my nephew and me? If you don’t hand him over at once, I will make you smart for it. Come, child, get your cap and coat, and come with me immediately. I have no more time to waste with this foolery, my man.” And he stepped forward as if to lay hands on Woolly Billy.

Blackstock interposed an inexorable shoulder. The big dog growled, and stiffened up the hair on his neck ominously.

“Look here,” said Blackstock crisply, “you’re goin’ to git yourself into trouble before you go much further, my lad. You jest mind your manners. When you bring me them proofs, I’ll talk to you, see!”

He took Woolly Billy’s hand, and turned towards the door.

The stranger’s righteous indignation, strangely enough, seemed to have been allayed by this speech. He followed eagerly.

“_Don’t_ be unreasonable, Mr. Blackstock,” he coaxed. “I’ll send you the documents, from my solicitors, at once. I’m sure you don’t want to stand in the dear child’s light this way, and prevent him getting back to his own people, and the life that is his right, a day longer than is necessary. Do listen to reason, now.” And he patted his wad of bank-notes suggestively.

But at this stage, Woolly Billy and the big dog having already entered the cottage, Blackstock followed, and calmly shut the door. “You’ll smart for this, you ignorant clod-hopper!” shouted Mr. Heathington Johnson. He clutched the door-knob. But for all his rage, prudence came to his rescue. He did not turn the knob. After a moment’s hesitation he ground his heel upon the doorstep, stalked back to his gig, and drove off furiously. The three at the window watched his going.

“We won’t see _him_ back here again,” remarked the Deputy. “_He_ wasn’t no uncle o’ yours, Woolly Billy.”

That same evening he wrote to a reliable firm of lawyers at Exville, telling them all he knew about Woolly Billy and Woolly Billy’s father, and also all he suspected, and instructed them to look into the matter fully.

II

Several weeks went by, and the imposing stranger, as Blackstock had anticipated, failed to return with his proofs. Then came a letter from the lawyers at Exville, saying that they had something important to communicate, and Blackstock hurried off to see them, planning to be away for about a week.

On the day following his departure, to the delight of all the children and of most of the rest of the population as well, there arrived at Brine’s Rip Mills a man with a dancing bear. He was a black-eyed, swarthy, merry fellow, with a most infectious laugh, and besides his trained bear he possessed a pedlar’s pack containing all sorts of up-to-date odds and ends, not by any means to be found in the very utilitarian miscellany of Zeb Smith’s corner store.

He talked a rather musical but very broken lingo that passed for English, flashing a mouthful of splendid white teeth as he did so. He appeared to be an Italian, and the men of Brine’s Rip christened him a “Dago” at once. There was no resisting his childlike _bonhomie_, or the amiable antics of his great brown bear, which grinned through its muzzle as if dancing to its master’s merry piccolo were its one delight in life. And the two did a roaring business from the moment they came strolling into Brine’s Rip.

“Tony” was what the laughing vagabond called himself, and his bear answered to the name of Beppo. Business being so good, Tony could afford to be generous, and he was continually pressing peppermint lozenges upon the rabble of children who formed a triumphal procession for him wherever he moved.

When Tony’s eyes first fell on Woolly Billy, standing just outside the crowd, with one arm over the neck of the big black dog, he was delighted.

“Com-a here, Bambino, com-a quick!” he cried, holding out some peppermints. Woolly Billy liked him at once, and adored the bear, but was too shy, or reserved, to push his way through the other children. So Tony came to him, leading the bear. Woolly Billy stood his ground, with a welcoming smile. The big black dog growled doubtfully, and then lost his doubts in curious admiration of the bear, which plainly fascinated him.

Woolly Billy accepted the peppermints politely, and put one into his mouth without delay. Then, with an apologetic air, the Italian laid one finger softly on Woolly Billy’s curls, and drew back at once, as if fearing he had taken a liberty.

“Jim likes the bear, sir, _doesn’t_ he?” suggested Woolly Billy, to make conversation.

“Everybody he like-a ze bear. Him vaira good bear,” asserted the bear’s master, and laughed again, giving the bear a peppermint. “An’ you one vaira good bambino. Ze bear, he like-a you vaira much. See he shak-a you ze hand—good frens now.”

Encouraged by the warmth of his welcome, the Italian had from the first made a practice of dropping in at certain houses of the village just at meal times—when he was received always with true backwoods hospitality. On Woolly Billy’s invitation he had come to the house of Mrs. Amos. The old lady, too rheumatic to get about much out of doors, was delighted with such a unique and amusing guest. To all he said—which, indeed, she never more than half understood—she kept ejaculating, “Well, I never!” and “Did ye ever hear the likes o’ that?”

And the bear, chained to the gate-post and devouring her pancakes-and-molasses, thrilled her with a sense of “furrin parts.” In fact, there was no other house at Brine’s Rip where Tony and his bear were made more warmly welcome than at Mrs. Amos’. The only member of the household who lacked cordiality was Jim, whose coolness towards Tony, however, was fully counterbalanced by his interest in the bear. Towards Tony his attitude was one of armed neutrality.

On the fourth evening after the arrival of Tony and Beppo, Jim discovered a most tempting lump of meat in the corner of Mrs. Amos’ garden. Having something of an appetite at the moment, he was just about to bolt the morsel. But no sooner had he set his teeth into it than he conceived a prejudice against it. He dropped it, and sniffed at it intently. The smell was quite all right. He turned it over with his paw and sniffed at the under side. No, there was nothing the matter with it. Nevertheless, his appetite had quite vanished. Well, it would do for another time. He dug a hole and buried the morsel, and then went back to the house to see what Woolly Billy and Mrs. Amos were doing.

A little later, just as Mrs. Amos was lighting the lamps in the kitchen, the rattling of a chain was heard outside, followed by the whimpering of Beppo, who objected to being tied up to the gate-post when he wanted to come in and beg for pancakes. Woolly Billy ran to the door and peered forth into the dusk. After a few moments Tony entered, all his teeth agleam in his expansive smile.

He had a little bag of bon-bons for Woolly Billy—something much more fascinating than peppermints—which he doled out to the child one by one, as a rare treat. And for himself he wanted a cup of tea, which hospitable Mrs. Amos was only too eager to brew for him. Jim, seeing that Woolly Billy was too interested to need _his_ company, got up and went out to inspect the bear.

Tony was in gay spirits that evening. In his broken English, and helping out his meaning with eloquent gestures, he told of adventures which made Woolly Billy’s eyes as round as saucers and reduced Mrs. Amos to admiring speechlessness. He made Mrs. Amos drink tea with him, pouring it out for her himself while she hobbled about to find him something to eat. And once in a while, at tantalizing intervals, he allowed Woolly Billy one more bon-bon.

There was a chill in the night air, so Tony, who was always politeness itself, asked leave to close the door. Mrs. Amos hastened also to close the window. Or, rather, she tried to hasten, but made rather a poor attempt, and sat down heavily in the big arm-chair beside it.

“My legs is that heavy,” she explained, laughing apologetically. So Tony closed the window himself, and at the same time drew the curtains. Then he went on talking.

But apparently his conversation was less interesting than it had been. There came a snore from Mrs. Amos’ big chair. Tony glanced aside at Woolly Billy, as if expecting the child to laugh. But Woolly Billy took no notice of the sound. He was fast asleep, his fluffy fair head fallen forward upon the red table-cloth.

Tony looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was not as late as he could have wished, but he had observed that Brine’s Rip went to bed early. He turned the lamp low, softly raised the window, and looked out, listening. There were no lights in the village, and all was silence save for the soft roar of the Rip. He extinguished the lamp, and waited a few moments till his eyes got quite accustomed to the gloom.

At length he picked up the slight form of Woolly Billy (who was now in a drugged stupor from which he would not awake for hours), and slung him over his left shoulder. In his right hand he grasped his short bear-whip, with its loaded butt. He stepped noiselessly to the door, listened a few moments, and then opened it inch by inch with his left hand, standing behind it, and grasping the whip so as to be ready to strike with the butt. He was wondering where the big black dog was.

The door was about half open, when a black shape, appearing suddenly, launched itself at the opening. The loaded butt came crashing down—and Jim dropped sprawling across the threshold.

From the back of the bear Tony now unfastened a small pack, and strapped it over his right shoulder. Then he unchained the great beast noiselessly, and led it off to the water-side, to a spot where a heavy log canoe was drawn up upon the beach. He hauled the canoe down, making much disarrangement in the gravel, launched it, thrust it far out into the water, and noted it being carried away by the current. He had no wish to journey by that route himself, knowing that as soon as the crime was discovered, which might chance at any moment, the telephone would give the alarm all down the river.

Next he undid the bear’s chain, and took off its muzzle, and threw them both into the water, knowing that when freed from these badges of servitude the animal would wander further and more freely. At first the good-natured creature was unwilling to leave him. Its master, from policy, had always treated it kindly, and fed it well, and it was in no hurry to profit by its freedom.

However, the man ordered it off towards the woods, enforcing the command by a vigorous push and a stroke of the whip. Shaking itself till it realized its freedom, it slouched away a few paces down stream, then turned into the woods. The man listened to its careless, crashing progress.

“They’ll find it easy following _that_ trail,” he muttered with satisfaction.

Assured that he had thus thrown out two false trails to distract pursuers, the man now stepped into the water, and walked up stream for several hundred yards, till he reached the spot which served as a ferry landing. Here, in the multiplicity of footprints, he knew his own would be indistinguishable to even the keenest of backwood eyes. He came ashore, slipped through the slumbering village, and plunged into the woods with the assurance of one to whom their mysteries were an open book.

He was shaping his course—by the stars at present, but by compass when it should become necessary—for an inlet on the coast, where there would be a sturdy fishing-smack awaiting him and his rich prize. All was working smoothly—as most plans were apt to work under his swift, resourceful hands—and his hard lips relaxed in triumphant self-satisfaction. One of the most accomplished and relentless of the desperadoes of the Great North-West, he had peculiarly enjoyed his pose as the childlike Tony.

For hour after hour he pushed on, till even his untiring sinews began to protest. About the edge of dawn Woolly Billy awoke, but, still stupid with the heavy drugging he had received, he did not seem to realize what had happened. He cried a little, asking for Jim, and for Tug Blackstock, and for Mrs. Amos, but was pacified by the most trivial excuses. The man gave him some sweet biscuits, but he refused to eat them, leaving them on the moss beside him. He hardly protested even when the man cut off his bright hair, and proceeded to darken what was left with some queer-smelling dye.

When the man undressed him and proceeded to stain his face and his whole body, he apparently thought he was being got ready for bed, and to certain terrible threats as to what would happen if he tried to get away, or to tell any one anything, he paid no attention whatever. He went to sleep again in the middle of it all.

Satisfied with his job, the man lay down beside him, knowing himself secure from pursuit, and went to sleep himself.

Meanwhile, after lying motionless for several hours, where he had dropped across the threshold, Jim at last began to stir. That crashing blow, after all, had not fallen quite true. Jim was not dead, by any means. He staggered to his feet, swayed a few moments, and then, for all the pain in his head, he was practically himself again. He went into the cottage, tried in vain to awaken Mrs. Amos in her chair, hunted for Woolly Billy in his bed, and at last, realizing something of what had happened, rushed forth in a panic of rage and fear and grief, and remorse for a trust betrayed.

It was a matter of a few minutes to trail the party down to the waterside. Then he darted off after the bear. The latter, grubbing delightedly in a rotten stump, greeted him with a friendly “Woof.” A glance and a sniff satisfied Jim that Woolly Billy was not there, and his instinct assured him that the bear was void of offence in the whole matter. He knew the enemy. He darted back to the waterside, ran on up stream to the ferry-landing, picked up the trail of Tony’s feet, followed it unerringly through the confusion of other footprints, and darted silently into the woods in pursuit.

At daybreak an early riser, seeing the door of Mrs. Amos’ cottage standing open, looked in and saw the old lady still asleep in her chair. She was awakened with difficulty, and could give but a vague account of what had happened. The whole village turned out. Under the leadership of Long Jackson, the big mill-hand who constituted himself Woolly Billy’s special guardian in Blackstock’s absence, the “Dago” and bear were traced down to the waterside.

Of course, it was clear to almost every one that the “Dago”—who was now due for lynching when caught—had carried Woolly Billy off down river in the vanished canoe. Instantly the telephones were brought into service, and half-a-dozen expert canoeists, in the swiftest canoes to be had, started off in pursuit. But the more astute of the woods-men—including Long Jackson himself—held that this river clue was a false one, a ruse to put them off the track. This group went after the bear.

In an hour or two they found him. And very glad to see them he appeared to be. He was getting hungry, and a bit lonely. So without waiting for an invitation, with touching confidence he attached himself to the party, and accompanied it back to the village. There Big Andy, who had always had a weakness for bears, took him home and fed him and shut him up in the back yard.

In the meantime Jim, travelling at a speed that the fugitive could not hope to rival, had come soon after daybreak to the spot where the man and Woolly Billy lay asleep.

He arrived as soundlessly as a shadow. At sight of his enemy—for he knew well who had carried off the child, and who had dealt that almost fatal blow—his long white fangs bared in a silent snarl of hate. But he had learnt, well learnt, that this man was a dangerous antagonist. He crouched, stiffened as if to stone, and surveyed the situation.

His sensitive nose prevented him from being quite deceived by the transformation in Woolly Billy’s appearance. He was puzzled by it, but he had no doubt as to the child’s identity. Having satisfied himself that the little fellow was asleep, and therefore presumably safe for the moment, he turned his attention to his enemy.

The man was sleeping almost on his back, one arm thrown above his head, his chin up, his brown, sinewy throat exposed. That bare throat riveted Jim’s vengeful gaze. He knew well that the man, though asleep and at an utter disadvantage, was the most dangerous adversary he could possibly tackle.

Step by step, so lightly, so smoothly, that not a twig crackled under his feet, he crept up, his muzzle outstretched, his fangs gleaming, the hair rising along his back. When he was within a couple of paces of his goal, the sleeper stirred slightly, as if about to wake up, or growing conscious of danger. Instantly Jim sprang, and sank his fangs deep, deep, into his enemy’s throat.

With a shriek the sleeper awoke, flinging wide his arms and legs convulsively. But the shriek was strangled at its birth, as Jim’s implacable teeth crunched closer. The great dog shook his victim as a terrier shakes a rat. There was a choked gurgle, and the threshing arms and legs lay still.

Jim continued his savage shaking till satisfied his foe was quite dead. Then he let go, and turned his attention to Woolly Billy.

The child was sitting up, staring at him with round eyes of question and bewilderment.

“Where am I, Jim?” he demanded. Then he gazed at the transformation in himself—his clothes and his stained hands. He saw his old clothes tossed aside, his curls lying near them in a bright, fluffy heap. He felt his cropped head. And then his brain began to clear. He had a dim memory of the man cutting his hair and changing his clothes.

Upon his first glimpse of the man, lying there dead and covered with blood, he felt a sharp pang of sorrow. He had liked Tony. But the pang passed, as he began to understand. If _Jim_ had killed Tony, Tony must have been bad. It was evident that Tony had carried him off, and that Jim had come to save him. Jim was licking his face now, rapturously, and evidently coaxing him to get up and come away.

He flung his arms around Jim’s neck. Then he saw the biscuits. He divided them evenly between himself and Jim, and ate his portion with good appetite. Jim would not touch his share, so Woolly Billy tucked them into his pocket. Then he got up and followed where Jim was trying to lead him, keeping his face averted from the terrible, bleeding thing sprawled there upon the moss. And Jim led him safely home.

When Tug Blackstock, two days later, returned from his visit to Exville, he brought news which explained why a certain gang of criminals had planned to get possession of Woolly Billy. The child had fallen heir to an immense property in England, and an ancient title, and he was to have been held for ransom. From that moment Blackstock never let him out of his sight, until, with a heavy heart, he handed him over to his own people.

Thereafter, as he sat brooding on a log beside the noisy river, with Jim stretched at his feet, Tug Blackstock felt that Brine’s Rip, for the lack of a childish voice and a head of flaxen curls, had lost all savour for him. And his thoughts turned more and more towards the arguments of a grey-eyed girl, who had urged him to seek a wider sphere for his energies than the confines of Nipsiwaska County could afford.

THE EAGLE

He sat upon the very topmost perch under the open-work dome of his spacious and lofty cage. This perch was one of three or four lopped limbs jutting from a dead tree-trunk erected in the centre of the cage—a perch far other than that great branch of thunder-blasted pine, out-thrust from the seaward-facing cliff, whereon he had been wont to sit in his own land across the ocean.

He sat with his snowy, gleaming, flat-crowned head drawn back between the dark shoulders of his slightly uplifted wings. His black and yellow eyes, unwinking, bright and hard like glass, stared out from under his overhanging brows with a kind of darting and defiant inquiry quite unlike their customary expression of tameless despair. That dull world outside the bars of his cage, that hated, gaping, inquisitive world which he had ever tried to ignore by staring at the sun or gazing into the deeps of sky overhead, how it had changed since yesterday! The curious crowds, the gabbling voices were gone. Even the high buildings of red brick or whitish-grey stone, beyond the iron palings of the park, were going, toppling down with a slow, dizzy lurch, or leaping suddenly into the air with a roar and a huge belch of brown and orange smoke and scarlet flame. Here and there he saw men running wildly. Here and there he saw other men lying quite still—sprawling, inert shapes on the close-cropped grass, or the white asphalted walks, or the tossed pavement of the street. He knew that these inert, sprawling shapes were men, and that the men were dead; and the sight filled his exile heart with triumph. Men were his enemies, his gaolers, his opponents, and now at last—he knew not how—he was tasting vengeance. The once smooth green turf around his cage was becoming pitted with strange yellow-brown holes. These holes, he had noticed, always appeared after a burst of terrific noise, and livid flame, and coloured smoke, followed by a shower of clods and pebbles, and hard fragments which sometimes flew right through his cage with a vicious hum. There was a deadly force in these humming fragments. He knew it, for his partner in captivity, a golden eagle of the Alps, had been hit by one of them, and now lay dead on the littered floor below him, a mere heap of bloody feathers. Certain of the iron bars of the cage, too, had been struck and cut through, as neatly as his own hooked beak would sever the paw of a rabbit.

The air was full of tremendous crashing, buffeting sounds and sudden fierce gusts, which forced him to tighten the iron grip of his talons upon the perch. In the centre of the little park pond, some fifty feet from his cage, clustered a panic-stricken knot of eight or ten fancy ducks and two pairs of red-billed coot, all that remained of the flock of water-birds which had formerly screamed and gabbled over the pool. This little cluster was in a state of perpetual ferment, those on the outside struggling to get into the centre, those on the inside striving to keep their places. From time to time one or two on the outer ring would dive under and force their way up in the middle of the press, where they imagined themselves more secure. But presently they would find themselves on the outside again, whereupon, in frantic haste, they would repeat the manœuvre. The piercing glance of the eagle took in and dismissed this futile panic with immeasurable scorn. With like scorn, too, he noted the three gaunt cranes which had been wont to stalk so arrogantly among the lesser fowl and drive them from their meals. These once domineering birds were now standing huddled, their drooped heads close together, beneath a dense laurel thicket just behind the cage, their long legs quaking at every explosion.

Amid all this destroying tumult and flying death the eagle had no fear. He was merely excited by it. If a fragment of shell sang past his head, he never flinched, his level stare never even filmed or wavered. The roar and crash, indeed, and the monstrous bufferings of tormented air, seemed to assuage the long ache of his home-sickness. They reminded him of the hurricane racing past his ancient pine, of the giant waves shattering themselves with thunderous jar upon the cliff below. From time to time, as if his nerves were straining with irresistible exultation, he would lift himself to his full height, half spread his wings, stretch forward his gleaming white neck, and give utterance to a short, strident, yelping cry. Then he would settle back upon his perch again, and resume his fierce contemplation of the ruin that was falling on the city.

Suddenly an eleven-inch shell dropped straight in the centre of the pool and exploded on the concrete bottom which underlay the mud. Half the pool went up in the colossal eruption of blown flame and steam and smoke. Even here on his perch the eagle found himself spattered and drenched. When the shrunken surface of the pool had closed again over the awful vortex, and the smoke had drifted off to join itself to the dark cloud which hung over the city, the little flock of ducks and coot was nowhere to be seen. It simply was not. But a bleeding fragment of flesh, with some purple-and-chestnut feathers clinging to it, lay upon the bottom of the cage. This morsel caught the eagle’s eye. He had been forgotten for the past two days—the old one-legged keeper of the cages having vanished—and he was ravenous with hunger. He hopped down briskly to the floor, grabbed the morsel, and gulped it. Then he looked around hopefully for more. There were no more such opportune tit-bits within the cage, but just outside he saw the half of a big carp, which had been torn in twain by a caprice of the explosion and tossed up here upon the grass. This was just such a morsel as he was craving. He thrust one great talon out between the bars and clutched at the prize. But it was beyond his reach. Disappointed, he tried the other claw, balancing himself on one leg with widespread wings. Stretch and struggle as he would, it was all in vain. The fish lay too far off. Then he tried reaching through the bars with his head. He elongated his neck till he almost thought he was a heron, and till his great beak was snapping hungrily within an inch or two of the prize. But not a hair’s-breadth closer could he get. At last, in a cold fury, he gave it up, and drew back, and shook himself to rearrange the much dishevelled feathers of his neck.

Just at this moment, while he was still on the floor of the cage, a high-velocity shell came by. With its flat trajectory it passed just overhead, swept the dome of the cage clean out of existence, and whizzed onwards to explode, with a curious grunting crash, some hundreds of yards beyond. The eagle looked up and gazed for some seconds before realizing that his prison was no longer a prison. The path was clear above him to the free spaces of the air. But he was in no unseemly haste. His eye measured accurately the width of the exit, and saw that it was awkwardly narrow for his great spread of wing. He could not essay it directly from the ground, his quarters being too straitened for free flight. Hopping upwards from limb to limb of the roosting-tree, he regained the topmost perch, and found that, though split by a stray splinter of the cage, it was still able to bear his weight. From this point he sprang straight upwards, with one beat of his wings. But the wing-tips struck violently against each side of the opening, and he was thrown back with such force that only by a furious flopping and struggle could he regain his footing on the perch.

After this unexpected rebuff he sat quiet for perhaps half a minute, staring fixedly at the exit. He was not going to fail again through misjudgment. The straight top of the roosting-tree extended for about three feet above his perch, but this extension being of no use to him, he had never paid any heed to it hitherto. Now, however, he marked it with new interest. It was close below the hole in the roof. He flopped up to it, balanced himself for a second, and once more sprang for the opening, but this time with a short, convulsive beat of wings only half spread. The leap carried him almost through, but not far enough for him to get another stroke of his wings. Clutching out wildly with stretched talons, he succeeded in catching the end of a broken bar. Desperately he clung to it, resisting the natural impulse to help himself by flapping his wings. Reaching out with his beak, he gripped another bar, and so steadied himself till he could gain a foothold with both talons. Then slowly, like a dog getting over a wall, he dragged himself forth, and stood at last free on the outer side of the bars which had been so long his prison.

But the first thing he thought of was not freedom. It was fish. For perhaps a dozen seconds he gazed about him majestically, and scanned with calm the toppling and crashing world. Then spreading his splendid wings to their fullest extent, with no longer any fear of them striking against iron bars, he dropped down to the grass beside the cage and clutched the body of the slain carp. He was no more than just in time, for a second later a pair of mink, released from their captivity in perhaps the same way as he had been, came gliding furtively around the base of the cage, intent upon the same booty. He turned his head over his shoulder and gave them one look, then fell to tearing and gulping his meal as unconcernedly as if the two savage little beasts had been field mice. The mink stopped short, flashed white fangs at him in a soundless snarl of hate, and whipped about to forage in some more auspicious direction.

When the eagle had finished his meal—which took him, indeed, scarcely more time than takes to tell of it—he wiped his great beak meticulously on the turf. While he was doing so, a shell burst so near him that he was half smothered in dry earth. Indignantly he shook himself, hopped a pace or two aside, ruffled up his feathers, and proceeded to make his toilet as scrupulously as if no shells or sudden death were within a thousand miles of him.

The toilet completed to his satisfaction, he took a little flapping run and rose into the air. He flew straight for the highest point within his view, which chanced to be the slender, soaring spire of a church somewhere about the centre of the city. As he mounted on a long slant, he came into the level where most of the shells were travelling, for their objective was not the little park with its “Zoo,” but a line of fortifications some distance beyond. Above, below, around him streamed the terrible projectiles, whinnying or whistling, shrieking or roaring, each according to its calibre and its type. It seemed a miracle that he should come through that zone unscathed; but his vision was so powerful and all-embracing, his judgment of speed and distance so instantaneous and unerring, that he was able to avoid, without apparent effort, all but the smallest and least visible shells, and these latter, by the favour of Fate, did not come his way. He was more annoyed, indeed, by certain volleys of _débris_ which occasionally spouted up at him with a disagreeable noise, and by the evil-smelling smoke clouds, which came volleying about him without any reason that he could discern. He flapped up to a higher level to escape these annoyances, and so found himself above the track of the shells. Then he made for the church spire, and perched himself upon the tip of the great weather-vane. It was exactly what he wanted—a lofty observation post from which to view the country round about before deciding in which direction he would journey.

From this high post he noticed that, while he was well above one zone of shells, there was still another zone of them screaming far overhead. These projectiles of the upper strata of air were travelling in the opposite direction. He marked that they came from a crowded line of smoke-bursts and blinding flashes just beyond the boundary of the city. He decided that, upon resuming his journey, he would fly at the present level, and so avoid traversing again either of the zones of death.

Much to his disappointment, he found that his present observation post did not give him as wide a view as he had hoped for. The city of his captivity, he now saw, was set upon the loop of a silver stream in the centre of a saucer-like valley. In every direction his view was limited by low, encircling hills. Along one sector of this circuit—that from which the shells of the lower stratum seemed to him to be issuing—the hill-rim and the slopes below it were fringed with vomiting smoke-clouds and biting spurts of fire. This did not, however, influence in the least his choice of the direction in which to journey. Instinct, little by little, as he sat there on the slowly veering vane, was deciding that point for him. His gaze was fixing itself more and more towards the north, or, rather, the north-west; for something seemed to whisper in his heart that there was where he would find the wild solitudes which he longed for. The rugged and mist-wreathed peaks of Scotland or North Wales, though he knew them not, were calling to him in his new-found freedom.

The call, however, was not yet strong enough to be determining, so, having well fed and being beyond measure content with his liberty, he lingered on his skyey perch and watched the crash of the opposing bombardments. The quarter of the town immediately beneath him had so far suffered little from the shells, and the church showed no signs of damage except for one gaping hole in the roof. But along the line of the fortifications there seemed to be but one gigantic boiling of smoke and flames, with continual spouting fountains of _débris_. This inexplicable turmoil held his interest for a few moments. Then, while he was wondering what it all meant, an eleven-inch shell struck the church spire squarely about thirty feet below him.

The explosion almost stunned him. The tip of the spire—with the weather-cock, and the eagle still clinging to it—went rocketing straight up into the air amid a stifling cloud of black smoke, while the rest of the structure, down to a dozen feet below the point of impact, was blown to the four winds. Half stunned though he was, the amazed bird kept his wits about him, and clutched firmly to his flying perch till it reached the end of its flight and turned to fall. Then he spread his wings wide and let go. The erratic mass of wood and metal dropped away, and left him floating, half-blinded, in the heart of the smoke-cloud. A couple of violent wing-beats, however, carried him clear of the cloud; and at once he shaped his course upwards, as steeply as he could mount, smitten with a sudden desire for the calm and the solitude which were associated in his memory with the uppermost deeps of air.

The fire from the city batteries had just now slackened for a little, and the great bird’s progress carried him through the higher shell zone without mishap. In a minute or two he was far above those strange flocks which flew so straight and swift, and made such incomprehensible noises in their flight. Presently, too, he was above the smoke, the very last wisps of it having thinned off into the clear, dry air. He now began to find that he had come once more into his own peculiar realm, the realm of the upper sky, so high that, as he thought, no other living creature could approach him. He arrested his ascent, and began to circle slowly on still wings, surveying the earth.

But now he received, for the first time, a shock. Hitherto the most astounding happenings had failed to startle him, but now a pang of something very like fear shot through his stout heart. A little to southward of the city he saw a vast pale-yellow elongated form rising swiftly, without any visible effort, straight into the sky. Had he ever seen a sausage, he would have thought that this yellow monster was shaped like one. Certain fine cords descended from it, reaching all the way to the earth, and below its middle hung a basket, with a man in it. It rose to a height some hundreds of feet beyond the level on which the eagle had been feeling himself supreme. Then it came to rest, and hung there, swaying slowly in the mild wind.

His apprehension speedily giving way to injured pride, the eagle flew upwards, in short, steep spirals, as fast as his wings could drive him. Not till he could once more look down upon the fat back of the glistening yellow monster did he regain his mood of unruffled calm. But he regained it only to have it stripped from him, a minute later, with tenfold lack of ceremony. For far above him—so high that even his undaunted wings would never venture thither—he heard a fierce and terrible humming sound. He saw something like a colossal bird—or rather, it was more suggestive of a dragon-fly than a bird—speeding towards him with never a single beat of its vast, pale wings. Its speed was appalling. The eagle was afraid, but not with any foolish panic. He knew that even as a sparrow would be to him, so would he be to this unheard-of sovereign of the skies. Therefore it was possible the sovereign of the skies would ignore him and seek a more worthy opponent. Yes, it was heading towards the giant sausage. And the sausage, plainly, had no stomach for the encounter. It seemed to shrink suddenly; and with sickening lurches it began to descend, as if strong hands were tugging upon the cords which anchored it to earth. The eagle winged off modestly to one side, but not far enough to miss anything of the stupendous encounter which he felt was coming. Here, at last, were events of a strangeness and a terror to move even his cool spirit out of its indifference.

Now the giant insect was near enough for the eagle to mark that it had eyes on the undersides of its wings—immense, round, coloured eyes of red and white and blue. Its shattering hum shook the eagle’s nerves, steady and seasoned though they were. Slanting slightly downwards, it darted straight toward the sausage, which was now wallowing fatly in its convulsive efforts to descend. At the same time the eagle caught sight of another of the giant birds, or insects, somewhat different in shape and colour from the first, darting up from the opposite direction. Was it, too, he wondered, coming to attack the terrified sausage, or to defend it?

Before he could find an answer to this exciting question, the first monster had arrived directly above the sausage and was circling over it at some height, glaring down upon it with those great staring eyes of its wings. Something struck the sausage fairly in the back. Instantly, with a tremendous windy roar, the sausage vanished in a sheet of flame. The monster far above it rocked and plunged in the uprush of tormented air, the waves of which reached even to where the eagle hung poised, and forced him to flap violently in order to keep his balance against them.

A few moments later the second monster arrived. The eagle saw at once that the two were enemies. The first dived headlong at the second, spitting fire, with a loud and dreadful rap-rap-rapping noise, from its strange blunt muzzle. The two circled around each other, and over and under each other, at a speed which made even the eagle dizzy with amazement; and he saw that it was something more deadly than fire which spurted from their blunt snouts; for every now and then small things, which travelled too fast for him to see, twanged past him with a vicious note which he knew for the voice of death. He edged discreetly farther away. Evidently this battle of the giants was dangerous to spectators. His curiosity was beginning to get sated. He was on the point of leaving the danger area altogether, when the dreadful duel came suddenly to an end. He saw the second monster plunge drunkenly, in wild, ungoverned lurches, and then drop head first, down, down, down, straight as a stone, till it crashed into the earth and instantly burst into flame. He saw the great, still eyes of the victor staring down inscrutably upon the wreck of its foe. Then he saw it whirl sharply—tilting its rigid wings at so steep an angle that it almost seemed about to overturn—and dart away again in the direction from which it had come. He saw the reason for this swift departure. A flock of six more monsters, of the breed of the one just slain, came sweeping up from the south to take vengeance for their comrade’s defeat.

The eagle had no mind to await them. He had had enough of wonders, and the call in his heart had suddenly grown clear and intelligible. Mounting still upward till he felt the air growing thin beneath his wing-beats, he headed northwards as fast as he could fly. He had no more interest now in the amazing panorama which unrolled beneath him, in the thundering and screaming flights of shell which sped past in the lower strata of the air. He was intent only upon gaining the wild solitudes of which he dreamed. He marked others of the monsters which he so dreaded, journeying sometimes alone, sometimes in flocks, but always with the same implacable directness of flight, always with that angry and menacing hum which, of all the sounds he had ever heard, alone had power to shake his bold heart. He noticed that sometimes the sky all about these monsters would be filled with sudden bursts of fleecy cloud, looking soft as wool; and once he saw one of these apparently harmless clouds burst full on the nose of one of the monsters, which instantly flew apart and went hurtling down to earth in revolving fragments. But he was no longer curious. He gave them all as wide a berth as possible, and sped on, without delaying to note their triumphs or their defeats.

At last the earth grew green again below him. The monsters, the smoke, the shells, the flames, the thunders, were gradually left behind, and far ahead at last he saw the sea, flashing gold and sapphire beneath the summer sun. Soon—for he flew swiftly—it was almost beneath him. His heart exulted at the sight. Then across that stretch of gleaming tide he saw a dim line of cliffs—white cliffs, such cliffs as he desired.

But at this point, when he was so near his goal, that Fate which had always loved to juggle with him decided to show him a new one of her tricks. Two more monsters appeared, diving steeply from the blue above him. One was pursuing the other. Quite near him the pursuer overtook its quarry, and the two spat fire at each other with that strident rap-rap-rapping sound which he so disliked. He swerved as wide as possible from the path of their terrible combat, and paid no heed to its outcome. But, as he fled, something struck him near the tip of his left wing.

The shock went through him like a needle of ice or fire, and he dropped, leaving a little cloud of feathers in the air above to settle slowly after him. He turned once completely over as he fell. But presently, with terrific effort, he succeeded in regaining a partial balance. He could no longer fully support himself, still less continue his direct flight; but he managed to keep on an even keel and to delay his fall. He knew that to drop into the sea below him was certain death. But he had marked that the sea was dotted with peculiar-looking ships—long, narrow, dark ships—which travelled furiously, vomiting black smoke and carrying a white mass of foam in their teeth. Supporting himself, with the last ounce of his strength, till one of these rushing ships was just about to pass below him, he let himself drop, and landed sprawling on the deck.

Half stunned though he was, he recovered himself almost instantly, clawed up to his feet, steadied himself with one outstretched wing against the pitching of the deck, and defied, with hard, undaunted eye and threatening beak, a tall figure in blue, white-capped and gold-braided, which stood smiling down upon him.

* * * * * * * *

“By Jove,” exclaimed Sub-Lieutenant James Smith, “here’s luck: Uncle Sam’s own chicken, which he’s sent us as a mascot till his ships can get over and take a hand in the game with us: Delighted to see you, old bird: You’ve come to the right spot, you have, and we’ll do the best we can to make you comfortable.”

THE MULE